2 More Baluch Minorities Executed/12 Baluch Executed in 4 Days

According to Hal Vash, two Baluch men were executed in Bandarabbas Central Prison on 2 May. Their identities have been reported as 55-year-old Mousa Gorgij and 30-year-old Ehsan Gorgij (pictured) who were both from the Barahouyi tribe in Zahedan and sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Courts.

An informed source quoted in the report, said: “Mousa and Ehsan were arrested in Bandarabbas around 3 years ago and sentenced to death by the Bandarabbas Revolutionary Court in the spring of 2022.”

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

In the last four days, at least 12 Baluch men and women have been executed in Zahedan, Birjand, Mashhad, Bandarabbas and Iranshahr prisons.

Ethnic minorities, the Baluch in particular, are grossly overrepresented in execution numbers in Iran. In 2022, at least 174 Baluch minorities including 3 women, were executed in 22 prisons across Iran, making up 30% of overall executions. This is while they represent just 2-6% of Iran’s population.

Baluch minorities also represented almost half of drug-related executions in 2022. 47.3% of the 256 people executed for drug-related charges were Baluch. Aminollah is the tenth Baluch prisoner to be executed in three days.

According to reports gathered by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 256 people were executed for drug-related offences in 2022, a more than two-fold increase compared to 2021 (126) and ten times more than 2020 (25).