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DUBAI (Reuters) – Protesters faced off with security forces in Iran’s restive southeast on Friday to mark the anniversary of a Sept. 30, 2022, crackdown by security forces known as “Bloody Friday”, according to rights groups and social media videos.<\/p>\n
Videos posted on the Z platform by the Iran Human Rights (IHR) group showed marchers confronting security forces in Zahedan, capital of the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, as apparent sounds of shooting are heard.<\/p>\n
IHR and the Baluch rights group Hal Vash said at least 23 people had been injured. Reuters could not verify the report or the authenticity of the videos.<\/p>\n
But Zahedan’s prosecutor said the city was calm and videos showing the injured were old, the state news agency IRNA reported. The semi-official news agency Tasnim said police had used tear gas to disperse “a few people who had gathered and were throwing rocks at security forces”.<\/p>\n
In the Sept. 30 crackdown, security forces killed at least 66 people, according to Amnesty International. Authorities blamed protesters, angered by the alleged rape of a girl from the Baluch ethnic minority by a police commander, for provoking the clashes.<\/p>\n
The Net monitor Netblocks reported a “significant disruption” to the internet in Zahedan on Friday, saying authorities had “systematically shut down telecoms to suppress weekly anti-government protests.”<\/p>\n
Molavi Abdolhamid, Iran’s most prominent Sunni cleric and a long-time critic of Tehran’s Shi’ite leaders, demanded justice for the victims of the Sept. 30 crackdown.<\/p>\n
“The people’s demand in the past year has been that those who committed this crime be brought to Islamic justice … but judges don’t have independence in Iran,” Abdolhamid said in a sermon posted online<\/p>\n
Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, is one of Iran’s poorest provinces and a major drug trafficking route.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups say the Baluch minority, estimated to number up to 2 million people, has faced discrimination and repression for decades. Iran says developing the region and resolving its problems is a “serious issue” for the government.<\/p>\n
Zahedan has also been the scene of weekly protests since a wave of nationwide unrest triggered last year by the death of a young Kurdish woman in the custody of morality police that shook the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Kevin Liffey)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n