According to the Balochistan Human Rights Group, on December 1,2024, a Baloch citizen who had been arrested in February of the previous year near the Sardasht area, a district of Sarbaz County, by plainclothes agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and transferred to Zahedan, was sentenced in court to one year of imprisonment and movement restrictions monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet on charges of “propaganda against the government.”
The identity of this Baloch citizen has been confirmed as Abdulhai Dashti, 21 years old, son of Mohammad Islam, a resident of the Sardasht area of Sarbaz County, currently residing in Chabahar.
According to the report, the final hearing of Mr. Dashti’s case was held on December 2, 2024, in Branch 2 of the Zahedan Revolutionary Court. He was sentenced to one year of imprisonment, including the period of his previous detention, along with a restriction on his movement, monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet, limited to a one-kilometer radius from his residence in Chabahar.
This citizen was subjected to physical and psychological torture for seven days in the detention center of the Zahedan Ministry of Intelligence to extract forced confessions. He was subsequently transferred to Ward 9 of Zahedan Central Prison, where he was detained for approximately one month before being released on bail.
It is reported that Mr. Dashti is a memorizer of the entire Quran and an active young student in the field of “Islamic Studies and Refutation of Atheist Doubts.”
It is noteworthy that every year, hundreds of students and activists in Balochistan are subjected to harassment, arrest, torture, or targeted killings by unknown individuals under various charges and accusations. This ongoing issue has led to a decline in the social, scientific, and cultural progress of Balochistan. Meanwhile, Baloch individuals in other countries excel in various fields without facing such threats or restrictions.
Under Iranian law, Ta’zire imprisonment is a type of prison sentence that is determined at the discretion of the court based on discretionary punishments (Ta’zire) set by the legislator.
The term Ta’zire refers to punishments for crimes for which Islamic Sharia law does not specify a fixed penalty. Instead, the punishment is determined based on the judge’s discretion and considerations of public interest and social conditions.
