Two Baloch religious leaders were executed in Iran

By Reza Hossein Borr

The two religious leaders, Moulavi Mohammad Yousuf Sohrabi and Moulavi Abdol Qoddoos Mollazehi,  who were forced to confess on television for the crimes they had not committed were executed in the early morning of 9th April 08.  The Islamic regime broadcast their forced and false confessions in three consecutive nights to prepare the public opinion for their execution and justifying their demise.  The news of the execution was broadcast not in the conventional ways in which the regime usually vilified the accused of corruption, armed struggle or drug trafficking.  Their executions were announced in a religious philosophical statement in which the ruling "Shia nation" was portrayed as the victim of the Sunni people who are a minority in Iran and are constitutionally excluded from all positions.  The Sunni and Baluch people of Iran are constitutionally banned from assuming the positions of supreme leader, president, ministers, ambassadors, governors, deputy ministers and army generals.  Such people are not in the position of victimizing the ruling “Shia nation of Iran” 

Few days before the executions, comprehensive security measures were implemented all over the province of Baluchistan and the neighboring Sunni areas to prevent any protest after their execution. The regime arrested in the last seven days more than 2000 Baluch and killed 37 Baluch and Sunnis to create sufficient fear to prevent demonstrations after the execution of the two teachers.

These teachers were arrested at the aftermath of the attacked by the security forces on a base of People's Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI), Jondollah on13 December 07. Even though the Islamic regime was capable of extracting false confessions from them, the Iranian people still believe that they were innocent teachers that did not commit any crime.  The show on television completely failed in convincing anybody that they were involved in armed struggle or in supporting the Jondollah.  Their faces and movements clearly showed the marks of tortures.  Those who saw the confessions on television noticed that what they said was dictated to them for television show.

The statement in which their execution was announced was a mixture of theological beliefs and revolutionary slogans.  The statement accused these two innocent teachers of shedding the blood of “Shia nation” while in fact the opposite is true.  It has been the Shia nation of Iran that has carried out systematic massacre of the Baluch people as in the first week of April 37 Baluch and Sunnis were killed by the Shia regime of Iran.  The statement accused them as Shia killers who were determined to create discord among Shia and Sunnis while the Shia government broadcasts anti-Sunni film and news almost every day. 

The Jondollah members who are struggling against the regime of Iran are almost all from the northern part of Baluchistan and these two teachers were from the Southern part of Baluchistan and there was not any relationship between them.  The regime also accused the PRMI for planning to explode the school that these teachers were part of and then arrested the teachers who were supposed to be exploded in the school. This is a very clear contradiction.  How the government could execute the teachers of the school that Jondollah was supposed to demolish?  And how demolishing the Sunni school in a remote area of Baluchistan could have been the source of discord among the Shia and Sunnis?

These teachers were also accused of preventing economic development of the province.  How two teachers who taught in a remote school were capable of preventing the most ruthless regime in the world from implementing economic projects in Baluchistan? So far there has not been even one single action against economic projects.  The Baluch people have struggled for years to persuade the government to increase development budget and implement sufficient economic projects to create jobs for the people of a province that has the highest unemployment rate in the country and according to all UN researches, is the poorest province of Iran.  The development budget of Baluchistan has ranged from £10 to £30 million per year.  This figure is not enough to build one single decent hospital and proves that there has not been any intention or policy from the government's side to develop Baluchistan.  While Iran had more than $70 million dollars income only from oil, the development budget of Baluchistan, the largest province of the country, has been less than £50 million this year.

The fundamentalist Shia regime of Iran tries to cover its policies of starving Baloch people and blames the Baluch for their own poverty.  According to a United Nations research, the Baluch children were found to have the highest IQ in the country.  Instead of helping such talented people to develop their potentials, the regime has been trying to deprive them from proper education. From 70,000 students in Balochistan universities, even 1000 of them are not Baloch.

 The two innocent Baluch teachers are gone now but their legacy for a fair and just society will motivate all human beings for campaigning for a better world.

Reza Hossein Borr is a leadership consultant and can be contacted on: balochfront@aol.com