On the Systemic Oppression in Baluchistan, Iran

I don’t know where to start! To speak about pent-up suffering and rancour that have not been expressed for years can be extremely painful. I am a woman from a forgotten part of Iran, from Baluchistan; a land in the southeast of Iran, whose people have been discriminated against and oppressed by the dictatorial state of the Islamic Republic, more than anywhere else in the country, due to their linguistic, cultural and religious differences.

No voice had been heard from there until the beginning of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement (Jina movement). And no one paid attention to the oppression of these people, which was allowed by the government. To protest against the rape of a 15-year-old Baluch girl by a military commander and the state’s murder of a Kurdish woman named Jina (Mahsa) in Tehran, the people of Baluchistan, like their fellow Iranians, poured into the streets to condemn these crimes and express their anger that had been stifled for many years. This was the moment they came to learn about yet another form of discrimination.

In the early days of the protests, when in other cities the government response was predominantly with batons and plastic bullets, in Baluchistan – unbelievably – within an hour of the start of the protest, children, women and men were being shot with live ammunition and more than a hundred lifeless bodies fell to the ground in what had – until a few moments ago – been a place of worship. Hundreds were injured in these blind shootings and twenty children were killed. They killed and did not even admit that they killed. It may be hard to believe that this massacre happened in a country that calls itself Islamic. A rain of bullets struck worshippers who had come to pray with nothing but their white clothes, carrying prayer rugs on their shoulders.

That is all true. Baluchistan is a place whose people have been at the forefront of protests against the regime of the Islamic republic in the past few months and have suffered the most brutal repression. The greatest number of protesters killed in one day (more than 100), the greatest number of executions during the protests (more than 80 executed within the first three months of protests in 2022 alone), the greatest number of executions in the space of ten days (more than thirty people were executed within ten days in April/May 2023) and even the greatest number of people wounded by live ammunition in a single day (more than 300 wounded in the protests on September 30, 2022 – a day that has been dubbed ‘Bloody Friday’). All these show the untiring struggle of these people against the regime and their preparation for the hard days of resistance.

During the last eight months [from September 2022 to May 2023], tens of thousands of people have poured into the streets every single Friday to seek justice for all the freedom martyrs. They do not have a powerful voice, yet they have become the voice of all the freedom fighters and political prisoners.

Baluchistan is a land whose people have always been discriminated against and oppressed. Outside Baluchistan, the sound of whipping, torture, arrests, suppression, execution and killing has never reached the world's ears. It is even more painful to understand that the 44-year-old regime of the Islamic republic has deprived them of the basic amenities of life, such as birth certificates, which constitute the identity of every citizen. Many of the victims of the Zahedan protests, the number of which was never recorded or authenticated, were children and youths who had no identity documents. Khodanour [Lajaei], who, like Mahsa Amini, became a symbol of Iranians' struggle against the regime, was a young man without any ID.

This tragedy becomes more painful when we understand that he was denied treatment after being shot by the regime forces, and died after two days of intense pain before his mother's eyes. I am speaking to you about a land whose people drowned in hutaks (reservoirs) trying to get a sip of water. I am talking about a place where children in the villages – just to reach their kapar (straw hut) classrooms miles from home – would ride with sukhtbars (fuel carriers)1, whose vehicles could explode at any moment in the face of direct fire from the security forces, and engulf them all in flames, just as dozens of people are burned to ashes every year in a fire [that is the embodiment] of poverty and unemployment.

I am speaking about a place where the women in its small cities suffer far more than the women in the other, bigger cities of Iran. First, they suffer the pain of being a woman in a country in which all the laws are anti women, and then the pain of being a Baluch woman. This is a double suffering that drags a Baluch woman to the brink of suicide or towards suffering from severe disease. The harshest suffering among Baluch women is perhaps the pain of being a Baluch mother. They are so engrossed in their roles as mothers, wives, daughters and sisters that they forget that a woman is an independent human being, full of both small and big desires.

Do not think, because I speak about oppression, discrimination, suffering and deprivation in this way, that Baluchistan is a poor land. I have not at any point intended to convey this, because I know that Baluchistan is rich in natural resources. Had they been extracted and used for its people no child would have died of poverty; no child would have been caught in the hutaks of death. It is painful to witness the pit in front of your house, which is your only source of drinking water, becoming your child's grave. If they do not drown in these marshes because they are thirsty, then they will certainly – in their childish carelessness – one day become the prey of the crocodile that seeks to survive in these waters. Until right now, had you ever heard anything about this discrimination and suffering, which for many years has only been shared by word of mouth among our people? Even popular and populist state media or domestic broadcasting agencies have paid no attention. The existence of these dangerous hutaks, which are still in use in areas where the population is as many as several thousand, is a testament to [the state’s] unwillingness to change these conditions in Baluchistan.

If these children do not suffer a tragic death in the hutaks, they have to live without the right to education, for they have no identity documents that enable them to study. And even if they manage to obtain them, they have no access to schools. This is a colossal crisis. Children struggle between life and death at birth and continue to survive in the midst of many crises.

If the child is a boy and is lucky enough to survive in the midst of all of these crises, he has no choice – like many young people in Baluchistan in search of a job – but to ride the ‘moving explosives’ that are the fuel-carrying vehicles. Eventually, he will become a sukhtbar (fuel carrier) destined to be killed, either by the forces of the Islamic Republic or in a car crash!

If the child is a girl,  to leave the sufferings of her childhood behind, she may marry the newly-independent teenager who has just become a sukhtbar. Then comes new suffering. Child marriage will bring one or two newborns into the world. This will lead the teenage father to hit the deadly roads to provide for the family, where he may be killed, leaving the mother - who is no more than a child herself - with other children to look after. The girl becomes a guardian who is neither educated nor has any official documents. Society has no interest in her either. This is the story of children who will continue to suffer this constant cycle of tragedy for years to come. 

Tonight, I have spoken of Baluchistan so that we remember that ethnic and religious minorities have always been subject to double oppression in Iran. [Tonight, I have talked about Baluchistan], because amplifying the voice of the people of Baluchistan and echoing the names of those who have been arrested or killed is our only means to raise public awareness about the violent repression carried out by the Iranian regime. 

1. _{Sukhtbars, who constitute a significant portion of the informal labour force, are left with no choice but to do precarious work in order to make ends meet.}

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   Fariba Balouch is a Baluchi women’s rights activist, born and raised in Sistan and Baluchistan, Iran and is currently based in London, United Kingdom. Prior to immigrating to the UK, she has worked as a schoolteacher in Iran for 16 years and collaborated with the Welfare Organisation in relation to social harms. She was the founder of the first rehabilitation centre for women in south of Sistan and Baluchistan province. Her social activism has been mostly focused on fighting against patriarchy and honour killings. In light of Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran, she is committed to amplify the voice of the oppressed people of Baluchistan.

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