The Iranian authorities executed 15 prisoners in Zahedan Prison on 6 November, amid the ongoing protests sparked by the death of Jîna (Mahsa) Amînî by the morality police, Yeni Yaşam news site reported.
The Initiative of Baluchi Activists, a local civil society group, said the prison administration had not informed the families of the victims before executing them.
The prison authorities also left the information requests of prisoners’ families about the executions unanswered, and only two executed prisoners had been identified as of Monday, the group said.
The southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan has been a focal point of protests since anti-government demonstrations spread across Iran after the 16 September death of Jîna (Mahsa) Amini, who is believed to have died of injuries inflicted by the country’s morality police.
The protests have continued in cities across the country in spite of security forces’ violent interventions, leaving Iran’s theocratic government under mounting pressure.
The Iranian parliament has passed a law that enables the death penalty for activists arrested while participating in protests, reported Turkish news site Gazete Karınca.
About a thousand people have begun to be tried in open courts in the capital Tehran, but there is no reliable news flow from more than 20 other provinces where demonstrators have been arrested, Gazete Karınca reported.
Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) reported an increase in the number of executions in 2021. At least 333 people were executed that year, and the authorities failed to announce the vast majority of these executions, the report said.