A report by a Baloch human rights organization the “Baloch Activist Campaign” has revealed that 179 persons from the Baloch minority were executed in Iran in 2022, accounting for one-third of the executions in the country.
The report titled “Human Rights Situation in Balochistan and Iranian Baloch Regions” revealed that 117 prisoners sentenced to death were convicted of “drug crimes”, and 48 others were hanged for “mandatory murder.”
As per the Baloch Activist Campaign, the actual number of executions in Balochistan is much higher than the declared figures, but it is not possible to get information about the number of people who may have been executed. That is because their families are unaware of this or threatened to remain silent.
Amnesty International had previously warned of “disproportionate” executions of “ethnic minorities” in Iran.
The total number of people executed in Iran last year has not yet been published, but the Iranian Human Rights Organization announced on December 13 that the figure exceeded 500 in the first 11 months of 2022. In the same time period in 2021, the number of citizens sentenced to death in Iran was 33.
According to a report by the Iranian Human Rights Organization, at least 109 protesters who were arrested since the start of the nationwide protests in the last four months are on the verge of facing the death penalty or have been executed.
However, according to reports from several websites and human rights organizations, what makes the situation of prisoners in Iranian-occupied Balochistan even more dangerous is that a large number of prisoners in the province, especially those who have been imprisoned in recent months, do not have birth certificates. This makes it more difficult to confirm their status.