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