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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ground forces threatened people seeking to cause disruption during his visit to the Sistan and Baluchistan province where a large gathering is expected to take place on Friday to remember the victims of September 30 massacre.
“We do not want blood of any innocent person to be shed because we are all the family of Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mohamamd Pakpour said on Thursday during a meeting with elders and religious figures in the province. “However we will deal decisively with those who disrupt the security of the public.”
The threats from the IRGC comes as Baluchi activists Telegram published videos of Zahedan on Telegram, showing a large number of IRGC forces and helicopters being deployed, resembling a militarized zone.
The IRGC forces and their militias killed at least 100 protesters including a number of children on September 30 when a large crowd protested following the sexual assault of a police chief on a Baluchi teenager as well las showing solidarity with protesters across the country following the killing of Mahsa Amini at the hand of the morality police in Tehran in mid-September.
Businesses in Zahedan went on strike on Wednesday to mark 40 days since the massacre took place. Iran’s judiciary announced that two members of a militant group were hanged in Zahedan, a move that Iran has used in the past to intimidate protesters.
The top Sunni cleric in Baluchestan region and the Sunni population in Iran have come under fierce attack by state media and IRGC-linked outlets for supporting protesters and criticizing authorities for committing the massacres in Zahedan and Khash.
Abdolhamid Ismaeezahi, the cleric that presides over the Makki mosque which is the main house of worship in Zahedan, has been a fierce critic of the Islamic Republic for killing protesters and has been threatened by a number of officials.
Historically, the IRGC has been in charge of the province where some of the most senior commanders have served over the years. Pakpour accused the enemies of the Islamic Republic of being behind the protests, claiming they were seeking to sow chaos in the province.
“Some on cyber space project that this is the end of Islamic Republic, the Islamic Republic is a system that the whole world decided to end the states of Iraq and Syria to fail but the will of IRGC did not allow it,” Pakpour said referring to the guards’ support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria to withstand pressure from opposition.
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said on Wednesday that during the eight weeks of protests since the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini on September 16, at least 328 people have been killed including 50 children. The organization said that 39 members of the security forces have died.
Kurdish human rights organizations say that around 60 protesters have died in the Kurdish areas, while in the Baluchistan area the number stands at around 120 protesters.
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