Baluch Revolution: the last nail in the coffin of the mullahs

Ali Rajab

The Baluch people suffer from persecution, marginalization and violation of their rights. Poverty is about 75 percent among their children in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province, amid major neglect by the mullah regime in Tehran.

The Baluch people constitute one of the largest ethnicities living between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan in the Baluchistan region. The Baluch tribes are also located on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. They account for 2 percent of the total population of Iran.

After the Iranian Revolutionary Guard planted the Pakistani-Iranian border with mines in Sarawan in eastern Iranian Sistan and Baluchistan province, resulting in the killing of two Baluch people and sparking outrage among the residents, demonstrators proceeded to burn the town council building.

Over the past four decades, the Iranian authorities have blurred the identity of the Baluch people by imposing the Persian language on important posts and government correspondence and imposing Persian culture throughout the region. However, these attempts have been totally rejected by the Baluch nationalists.

Last year, the Baluch people demonstrated in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province, in protest against the insult to the Sunni Baluch people at one of the city’s universities, chanting “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid of us all together.”

In terms of marginalization, 75 percent of the population of Sistan and Baluchistan suffer from malnutrition and critical health conditions, according to Alim Yar Mohammadi’s statements in the Iranian parliament.

The Sistan and Baluchistan province suffers from food and water pollution and the absence of bread and food products needed for a decent life, along with a dismal sewage network.

Many observers consider that there is systematic repression by the Iranian regime against the Sunni Baluch, as confirmed by the Baluchi human rights activist Munira Soleimani at the Iranian Minorities Conference held in Geneva in March 2015 under the auspices of the United Nations.

“This people – the Baluch – are subjected to complex persecution. They do not enjoy their national or religious rights, and their sons are not eligible to run for senior positions since they are Sunnis, because the Iranian constitution follows the state-official Shiite doctrine, which leads to the exclusion and marginalization of the Sunnis,” Soleimani stated.

Meanwhile, Dr. Aref al-Kaabi, chairman of the Executive Committee for the Restoration of the Legitimacy of the State of Ahvaz, said that the policy of the mullahs is based on the persecution and marginalization of non-Persian peoples in order to continue the rule and regime of Iran’s oppressive dictatorship.

Kaabi said that the majority of the non-Persian people, including the Baluch, Kurds, Ahvazi and others, suffer systematic marginalization in favor of the oppressive Persian regime.

He pointed out that last year witnessed a significant increase in demonstrations and protests inside Baluchistan, Ahvaz, Iranian Kurdistan and Iranian Azerbaijan against the mullah regime, in addition to labor protests and a popular revolution in Tehran and Iranian cities due to the difficult economic conditions resulting from the mullahs’ foreign policy of supporting terrorism. The US State Department has indicated that the Khamenei regime has spent $16 billion since 2012 on terrorist groups in the region, which shows that this regime is bent on expansionist repression against humanity.