‘It was a massacre’: How safety forces cracked down in southeastern Iran

Some of the wounded tried to crawl away to flee the gunfire. Others bled to dying on prayer mats as folks tried to pull them to security.

But the snipers and officers saved pulling their triggers, firing bullet after bullet into males and younger boys at a worship space the place Friday Prayer had been underway.

The horrific scene unfolded Sept. 30 in Zahedan, a metropolis in southeastern Iran that’s house to the ethnic Baluch minority, after a small group of worshippers emerged from the Great Mosalla prayer advanced to confront safety forces posted at a police station throughout the road.

The protesters chanted anti-government slogans and threw rocks on the officers, prompting the safety forces to fireside indiscriminately into the group, in keeping with witnesses. As the demonstrators scattered, the gunshots stalked their retreat again towards the advanced, the place hundreds had been nonetheless praying.

“It was a massacre I had only seen in movies,” stated Jamshid, 28, a worshipper, who was reached by cellphone and recognized himself solely by his first identify to keep away from reprisals. “They started shooting as people still had their heads bowed in prayer.” Young males threw themselves in entrance of youngsters and older folks to protect them from the bullets, Jamshid stated. “People had nowhere to go.”

The bloodbath, referred to as “Bloody Friday” by residents, represents essentially the most deadly authorities motion since a crackdown started towards nationwide demonstrations a month in the past. Some 66 to 96 folks had been killed over the course of the subsequent a number of hours, in keeping with native and worldwide human rights teams, together with Amnesty International.

The Great Mosalla prayer advanced in Zahedan, Iran, the place safety forces fired indiscriminately right into a crowd chanting antigovernment slogans and throwing rocks on Sept. 30, 2022. (NYT)

Videos obtained and analyzed by The New York Times present intimately an unbridled response by the safety forces because the chaotic and bloody scene unfolded. In one video, males who look like snipers in plainclothes are seen on the police station’s roof firing into the road.

The unrest within the ethnic Baluch area additionally poses one more severe problem for the clerics in Tehran, Iran, who’ve been scrambling to include essentially the most severe anti-government protests seen in years.

The nationwide protests began in September after a younger lady, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody after being arrested on an accusation of violating the federal government’s regulation on headscarves. But the demonstrations expanded to incorporate broader requires an finish to rule by the Islamic Republic.

Anger in Zahedan boiled over after accusations surfaced {that a} Baluch teenager had been raped by a police officer in one other metropolis, fueling long-simmering discontent among the many Baluch minority, predominantly Sunni Muslims over the rule of Shiite authorities in Tehran.

Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, an arid province within the southeastern nook of the nation and one of many least developed and most unstable elements of Iran.

Only now, two weeks after the crackdown — which has been largely hid from Iranians by an web blackout within the nation — have particulars corroborating the scope of the killings in Zahedan began to emerge.

The Times spoke with 10 residents from Zahedan, together with witnesses and activists; relations of the victims; and a medic who helped deal with greater than 150 folks for wounds. All spoke on the situation of anonymity, for worry of retribution from the federal government. They echoed the accusation that safety forces fired indiscriminately on unarmed protesters and civilians with bullets and tear fuel. Helicopters had been additionally deployed, in keeping with witnesses.

Dozens of movies obtained, reviewed and verified by the Times help key elements of the narrative put ahead by witnesses and activists.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an elite department of the armed forces, has confirmed that its forces had been current in Zahedan and that six of its members had been killed that day, together with its regional intelligence chief, Col. Ali Mousavi, and officers from the scary Basij militia. They have denied firing on civilians.

Witnesses stated that quite a few Iranian safety officers had been killed however that they died later throughout avenue clashes.

Several days after the assault, Iran’s international minister stated in an announcement referring to Zahedan that “organized elements” had disrupted peaceable protests “with the aim of turning the protests into violence, chaos and a massacre of innocent civilians and police forces.”

According to residents, the violence Sept. 30 was preceded by a smaller demonstration two days earlier, in one other metropolis in the identical province, Chabahar. The day earlier than the shootings in Zahedan, protesters started calling for a “broad uprising” in “all of the towns of Baluchestan” as an act of “solidarity with Kurdistan and in protest of the rape of the Baluch girl,” in keeping with a poster promoting the demonstrations. The Kurdistan area of Iran has additionally seen main protests in latest weeks and has been topic to assaults by authorities forces.

“It was really the synergy of both issues that brought people into the streets,” stated Hadi Ghaemi, the manager director for the Center for Human Rights in Iran, an impartial group based mostly in New York. “If anything, this very serious local grievance about the rape of a teenage girl made their passions stronger.”

By 1 p.m., hundreds of individuals had filed into the Great Mosalla, throughout the road from the town’s police headquarters.

The temper was peaceable, in keeping with Molavi Abdul Hamid, the Sunni imam of the prayer service, who supplied an in depth account of the day in a video assertion he posted on the Telegram messaging app. In his sermon, Hamid stated he suggested all worshippers to “maintain peace” and “control their emotions” till an investigation into the rape accusation had been accomplished.

But in keeping with the cleric and two different witnesses, a bunch of 10 to fifteen younger worshippers left the advanced earlier than prayers had concluded to collect outdoors the police station.

A video verified by the Times exhibits a number of the protesters throwing rocks on the police station, the place safety forces stood on the roof, as gunshots are heard. Witnesses stated that some protesters hurled Molotov cocktails.

The forces responded with gunfire, witnesses stated.

One video verified by the Times exhibits two males who look like in uniform standing alongside one other man on the roof of the police station firing what appears to be a pump-action shotgun within the path of the mosque.

One verified video exhibits a bunch of younger males carrying the injured contained in the Mosalla advanced. Other verified movies present that not less than a number of the injured had been introduced in from the road outdoors the police station.

“They thought it would be a safe area — the most sacred place in the city,” stated one resident, a lecturer, who knew college students who died that day. “They did not know they were walking back into a deathtrap.”

Another video from contained in the mosque exhibits worshippers, nonetheless bent in prayer, as semi-automatic rifle and assault rifle hearth are heard within the background, in keeping with a Times evaluation and witnesses.

“People started carrying in bodies as attendees were still crouching on their prayer mats,” stated Jamshid, the worshipper. Within minutes, he stated, the service devolved right into a scene of terror as safety forces shot bullets and tear fuel into the prayer advanced.

Survivors started piling our bodies into vehicles and on prayer mats, which had been used as stretchers, solely to be focused within the streets, witnesses stated.

“Most of these bullets were shot at the heads and hearts of the worshippers, which turns out to have been done by snipers,” Hamid, the cleric, stated in his video assertion.

Many managed to flee to the town’s primary mosque, the Makki, a half-mile away. A medic who recognized himself as Ahmed stated by phone that he and a nurse handled greater than 150 casualties there.

“As soon as I heard the gunshots, I wanted to help,” Ahmed stated. He estimated that tons of of individuals unloaded useless and injured on the entrance gate. “It was total chaos,” he stated. “Many were bleeding or shouting, ‘This person is dying; this one is hit in the belly.’”

Many victims prevented going to the hospital, Ahmed stated, for worry that native safety forces would arrest them. That left him and the medic working alone, overwhelmed within the carnage.

“We did not know who to prioritize first,” he stated. “People started dying before my eyes.”

Ahmed stated that 30 useless our bodies, together with of youngsters, had been piled in a youngsters’s prayer room within the Makki mosque. People in crucial situation had been carried to the basement, which he become a makeshift emergency ward. Sheets and shawls had been used to stanch the gunshot wounds, stated Ahmed, who supplied movies and pictures from his cellphone of the injured.

Among these severely wounded was Ahmed’s neighbor, 26, a newlywed whose spouse was anticipating a son. “His liver was falling from his body,” Ahmed stated. “I had never sewn someone before. I was not fast enough. I just held his hand and told him to not fall asleep.” The neighbor died quickly after.

As the day went on, extra civilians swarmed into the streets as they turned conscious of the violence happening within the metropolis.

They had been met with Persian-speaking safety forces, in conventional Baluch clothes, who emerged from vehicles earlier than firing on the protesters, a few of whom fought again with Molotov cocktails and bullets, in keeping with witnesses. Most of the clashes happened on a avenue close to the Makki mosque the place tons of had gathered.

Rafeh Naroohi, 25, who labored within the bazaar, was killed within the violence that day, his household stated. They discovered him with a number of photographs to the chest.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” a member of the family stated, describing him as good-natured and charming. “He was completely innocent.”

Experts say that the particularly lethal nature of the federal government crackdown is just like violence seen in earlier years, when safety forces focused minority teams throughout nationwide waves of unrest.

“This shooting to kill — it’s the same playbook,” stated Ghaemi, pointing to how the Revolutionary Guard executed a equally brutal crackdown in 2019, after they surrounded, shot and killed 40 to 100 demonstrators searching for refuge in a marsh within the southwestern metropolis of Mahshahr.

“When there is a national uprising,” he stated, “they carry out the most killings in ethnic minority areas to give the semblance of defending the homeland.”

This article initially appeared in The New York Times.