Baluch Mohammad Darayi and Mehdi Salari Executed in Jiroft

According to Hal Vash, two Baluch men were executed in Jiroft Prison on 25 May. Their identities have been reported as 30-year-old Mohammad Darayi (Golbacheh) and 48-year-old Mehdi Salari who were sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court. Mohammad had been behind bars for around four years.

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

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.

According to the 2022 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, 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).