Iranian security forces violently dispersed protesters June 18 in Pashmouki village, Faryab county, Kerman province, within the greater Baluchistan region. Six ethnic Baloch residents, including three women, were detained, and several injured. The protest took place outside a chromite mine in the village, which has been a source of great contention. Iran's government has been cracking down on unlicensed mines in the region, but residents say they gain no economic benefit from the licensed ones, while they are left to deal with the environmental impacts.
Since the mass protests [6] in Iran earlier this year, the Baluchistan region has been flooded with Revolutionary Guard troops. On the same day as the violence in Pashmouki, a Baloch youth was killed by Revolutionary Guards in unclear circumsatnces in Saravan, in the neighboring province of Sistan & Balochistan. Two days earlier, another Baloch youth was killed by Iranian border guards, apparently while attempting to re-enter the country from Afghanistan, to where he had been improperly deported. The traditional Baloch homeland is divded between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, with many Baloch unable to get citizenship papers from any of these three governments, and left effectively stateless. (Hengaw [8], Hengaw [9], Hengaw [10], Gunaz [11], Balochistan Pulse [12], Express-Tribune [13], Express-Tribune [14], Pakistan)
