Baluch Brothers Saeed and Esmail Alizehi Secretly Executed in Zahedan

According to Hal Vash, two Baluch men were secretly executed in Zahedan Central Prison on 4 November. Their identities have been reported as 25-year-old Saeed Alizehi and 29-year-old Esmail Alizehi from Zabol who were sentenced to death for drug-related charges. Esmail was a construction worker prior to arrest.

The Alizehi brothers’ execution was carried out without their family being notified and the chance to say goodbye.

An informed source said: “Esmail and Saeed were arrested for drug charges in the Zabol border region around two years ago but no drugs were ever found. The agents intentionally trumped up the charges. Even in court, the two brothers vehemently denied the charges but the judge ignored their defence and sentenced them to death. They’d recently been transferred from Zabol Prison to Zahedan Central Prison and were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions on 2nd November.”

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. Furthermore, at least 274 Baluch people have been executed for drug-related charges since 2021, 40% of all drug executions in that time period.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year for the past three years. At least 305 people were executed for drug-related charges between 1 January-10 October 2023, a 69% increase compared to the same period in 2022, and the number of drug-related executions in 2023 were close to 20 times higher than 2020.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions. On 13 September 2023, IHRNGO reported a 94% rise in the number of drug-related executions in the year following the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022.