TEHRAN: Authorities in Iran have dismissed two senior police officials in the southeastern city of Zahedan, state media said Friday, four weeks after clashes that left dozens dead including military officers (pic).
The violence in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province which borders Pakistan, erupted on September 30 with what Iranian officials described as attacks on security forces.
It comes against the backdrop of nationwide unrest that erupted after the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
The Sistan-Baluchistan security council said Friday it had concluded an investigation into the unrest at the request of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, conceding “negligence” by officers and the deaths of “innocent” civilians.
In a statement published by state news agency IRNA, the council announced the dismissal of Zahedan’s police chief as well as the head of a police station.
According to the statement, the violence began after Friday prayers in Zahedan, one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran.
A group of more than 150 people had stormed a police station situated near the place of prayer “with the aim of seizing control of it”, the statement said.
Some of them were armed and the crowd “hurled stones and fired” weapons, it added. Security forces responded with tear gas and live fire.
The nearby mosque had not been completely evacuated, and the clashes “unfortunately resulted in the injury and death of a number of civilians who were praying as well as uninvolved passersby”, the statement said.
The council admitted “negligence on the part of some officers” and promised compensation for the families of “innocent victims” and legal proceedings against those involved.
Some local figures said protests were triggered by anger over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police officer.
In its statement, the security council said “armed militants exploited this atmosphere to attack civilians” and vandalise public property, which required intervention by security forces.
“A number of armed individuals were killed and six members of the security forces were martyred” as a result, it said, including a Revolutionary Guards commander.
The official figure puts the civilian death toll at 35, including “some of those praying inside the mosque, those killed... near the police station and those killed by gunmen”.
Human rights groups based outside Iran have reported an overall toll of at least 93 people killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Hundreds of demonstrators took to Zahedan’s streets on October 21, three weeks after the deadly clashes, and authorities said dozens of “rioters” were arrested.
Poverty-stricken Sistan-Baluchistan is a flashpoint for clashes with drug smuggling gangs as well as rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremist groups.
Iranians took to the streets around the country for a second successive night. Security forces have struggled to contain the women-led protests that have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.
“This is the year of blood, Seyed Ali will be toppled!” hundreds of protesters chanted in the west Tehran neighbourhood of Chitgar late Thursday, in an online video verified by AFP.
The fresh rallies came as people gathered to mourn young demonstrators killed in the crackdown.
Security forces on Thursday shot dead at least three protesters in Mahabad and another two in Baneh, both near Iran’s western border with Iraq, said Hengaw, a Norway-based human rights group.
Amnesty International said “unlawful killings” by Iran’s security forces had claimed the lives of at least eight people in four provinces within 24 hours, in a statement late Thursday.
The deadly gunfire came after mourners paying tribute to Ismail Mauludi, a 35-year-old protester killed on Wednesday night, left his funeral and made their way towards the governor’s office, it said.
“Death to the dictator,” protesters yelled, using a slogan aimed at Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the Mahabad governor’s office burned, in an online video verified by AFP.
Other verified footage showed clashes near the grave of 16-year-old Nika Shahkarami, outside the western city of Khorramabad, where dozens of people were marking the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period since she was killed by security forces.
“I’ll kill, I’ll kill, whoever killed my sister,” they could be heard chanting, in a video posted on Twitter by the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency.
Dozens of men were seen hurling projectiles under fire as they drove back security forces in riot gear on a bridge near Shahkarami’s tomb.
The latest demonstrations came despite a crackdown that the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group says has already killed at least 141 protesters, including more than two dozen children.
Analysts say the Iranian authorities have sought to quell the protests through various tactics, possibly in a bid to avoid fuelling yet more anger among the public.
Amnesty International called for urgent action to halt the bloodshed.
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