Deadly restlessness robs the Iranian city

Riots erupted earlier this week when protesters stormed a building of the local governor and another police station. The incidents came in response to Revolutionary Guard patrols firing on alleged fuel smugglers crossing the Pakistani border and killing at least ten people, according to rights activists in the area.

Iran’s presidential chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, this week blamed Pakistani border guard culprits, saying they had fired on smugglers who intended to use designated border points for fuel traders. The government said two or three people had died.

A senior Pakistani official said he was unaware of any formal complaints or denunciations from Iran against his country’s forces and that Pakistani troops had not opened fire.

The Iranian government said on Thursday afternoon that the situation had calmed down, but that no attackers had been arrested. Recent concerns have been limited to Saravan, but localized protests over economic discontent have spread across the country.

Internet and telephone lines were cut in part during the recent riots, according to social media users who tracked Internet traffic in Sistan-Baluchistan province, of which Saravan is a part. Restricting Internet access is a tactic used by Iranian authorities to prevent the dissemination of information and limit communication between protesters.

In recent years, protests rooted in economic discontent have posed major security challenges for the government and led to large-scale crackdowns, most recently in late 2019, when hundreds died in crackdowns on protests across the country. . These protests were triggered by a rise in fuel prices.

The Iranian government blames US sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on the country’s economic situation, which has been exacerbated by the economic slowdown in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sistan-Baluchistan, the second largest of Iran’s 31 provinces by area, has for centuries been one of the country’s poorest and most marginalized areas. Its population consists mainly of the Baloch, a Sunni Muslim minority.

Iranian authorities have long maintained a strong security presence in the province due to a low-intensity insurgency involving several militant groups (some separatist nationalists, others Sunni Islamic extremists) that Tehran has called terrorists.

Provincial Deputy Governor for Security Mohammad Hadi Marashi told state media on Thursday that some of the attackers behind the riots were linked to opposition groups, without naming them.

On the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, the province is on the main drug trafficking route from South Asia to Europe. Amid high inflation, a depreciated currency and heavily restricted international trade due to sanctions, smuggling gasoline outside Iran can offer significant illicit revenues. Iranians still enjoy some of the lowest fuel prices in the world because of large government subsidies.

President Hassan Rouhani has said he would intensify the fight against smuggling to improve the country’s economy. From March to November last year, Iranian authorities fined fuel and livestock smugglers particularly with about $ 570 million, an increase of 50% over the same period last year.

Iranian social media users in recent days have accused authorities of resorting to violence against an impoverished population. Some drew parallels with the massacre in the southwestern port city of Mahshahr in 2019, where there was another Sunni minority, when Revolutionary Guard forces surrounded protesters and killed up to 100 people. civilians.

The Center for Human Rights Defenders, a defense group led by Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, wrote a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday, urging an investigation into the killings of security forces in Sistan -In Baluchistan.

—Saeed Shah in Islamabad contributed to this article.

Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen to [email protected]