Iran: Security Forces Drag Injured Baluch Protesters From Hospital In Volatile SE Province
Injured Baluch protesters were violently dragged out of a hospital in southeastern Iran last night by security forces. Locals have been protesting for five days since the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) opened fire on Baluch fuel carriers on February 22 in Saravan.
The Baluch Activists Campaign said the injured Baluch protesters were dragged out from a hospital in Shuru near Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province.
The report identified four of the detainees adding that one of the injured protesters, Omar She Bakhsh, had two bullet wounds in his hand and one is his leg.
“Omar was initially taken to the hospital. Security forces identified him and the people who brought him to the hospital. Then they followed them to their home in Shuru and arrested them,” an informed source said.
The detainees were brutally beaten and taken to an unknown location.
Other local reports indicate that security forces have put pressure on the leaders and elders of Shuru, Kurin and Qaleh Bid, all protest hotspots, to call for a cessation of protests and to hand over protesters.
This is not the first time the regime drags injured protesters out of hospitals. Wounded protesters have been taken out of hospitals and dragged to prison where they are denied basic medical aid during every major protest in the past few years.
The regime shut down or disrupted internet connections on Wednesday night to quell the Sistan and Baluchestan protests. However, protests have continued and have spread to several other cities in the province including in the provincial capital, Zahedan.
The government is continuously dispatching reinforcements from other provinces including Isfahan, in central Iran and neighboring Kerman, although publicly, officials claim that conditions are “calm” and “under control” in Sistan and Baluchestan.
There are growing concerns that the regime is brutally suppressing the Baluch protesters amid an internet blackout.
