“It’s about a systematic killing”

The videos are blurry and shaky, bearing witness to the chaos they document. Nevertheless, a few seconds are enough to understand what they show.

A motionless body in bright sunlight, red head against gray pavement.

A group of people gathered around two men who are bleeding profusely, a bare hand pressed against a gashed flesh wound.

Strong arms drag a lifeless body across asphalt.

A man slumps against a wall, beige trousers quickly dyed red.

The soundscape is at least as chaotic. Panicked screams, people trying to outvote each other, feet moving quickly across asphalt. Repeated volleys of gunfire, like explosions shaking the drawn shop shutters.

“On the Road to War”

In recent days, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) has received more and more reports about how heavily armed forces have taken over a number of Kurdish towns in northwestern Iran, both with armored vehicle convoys and military helicopters. According to the organization’s founder Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam strongly suggest that many of the soldiers belong to the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, which was formed after the Islamic revolution in 1979 to protect the new religious state from coup attempts.

– It looks more like they are on their way to war than to meet protesters, says Amiry-Moghaddam.

– The people on the streets are unarmed, they are practically completely empty-handed, and are met with indiscriminate shelling. It is about the systematic killing of protesters, especially of people in ethnic regions.

According to the compilations that, among others, the IHR continuously makes of those killed, injured and arrested during the protests, most have been killed in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan as well as Kurdistan, home above all to the ethnic minorities Baluch and Kurds.

Second class citizens

In recent days, a number of Iranian cities with predominantly Kurdish populations have largely turned into war zones, according to organizations tracking the increasingly intense protests in Iran. According to the Norway-based human rights organization Hengaw, Iranian regime forces have used heavy weapons – including machine guns – against protesters in cities such as Javanrud, Mahabad and Piranshahr.

Hengaw’s sources report that hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guards have surrounded Javanrud and are blocking the entrances to the city, which is about 50 miles west of Tehran. On Tuesday morning, six military helicopters arrived in Javanrud, writes the organization via social media.

The security forces are also reported to have shelled a vehicle that was transporting blood to the injured in Javanrud.

That the protests, which started with Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Aminis death in the custody of the hard-line moral police in mid-September, has been so widespread in Baluchistan and Kurdistan has historical explanations, says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. Likewise, the regime’s brutal crackdown on Baluchs and Kurds.

– These regions are populated by people who have been marginalized by the regime for over 40 years. They have been considered second-class citizens, he says.

Reports of machine guns

As more and more video clips leak out from Javanrud, Mahabad and Piranshahr, fears of an upcoming massacre of Kurdish civilians are growing, Amiry-Moghaddam says.

– It is incredibly worrying to see the magnitude of weapons being sent to these areas. It is about both lighter and heavier machine guns; there are pictures of people who appear to have been shot with a Duzhka (Soviet WWII heavy machine gun, ed. note), pictures of unarmed people lying in pools of blood in the streets.

Despite the fact that several cities have practically turned into war zones, the IHR sees no signs that the crowds are about to give up.

– The people are getting angrier and angrier and the regime is losing control more and more. It is a regime that has ruled with the help of fear – but that fear is gone now, says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.