The Hanging Baluchs

Today, Abldulhamid Rigi was hanged. When researching his hanging, I came across this old photo of an execution event whose cause I do not know.

In this picture, three men hang dead. A large crowd is watching. If you pay attention to the faces of the frontliners in the crowd, it seems they are watching a bullfight of sorts. It seems like a circus, a parade, a freak show of sorts.

One may wonder if these public hangings are done to serve as an "example"!

I took this picture from a Balouchi weblog: Taftan.blogspot.com. The writer of the blog finds it provocative that the hanged men are in their Baluchi dress. He finds the fact that they are hanged in their ethnic attire a proof that the "Iranians" are out there to get them.

Today, more Balouchs have been hanged. One of them is the brother of Abdulmalek Rigi, the (in)famous leader of the terrorist organization Jundollah.

That Jundollah is a terrorist organization is attested by its members; they, like many other resistance movements (such as Palestinians, and Japanese) resort to suicide missions to take out their enemies. If you can read a comment left under this picture in the weblog I mentioned above, you will see a call for a suicide mission to get rid of the Zabolis (who are the shiite rivals of Balouchis in the Sistan & Balouchestan province.)

But, that these public hangings succeed as deterrents is highly objectionable.

Three men are hanging dead. Their dead bodies feel no pain, no gain, no shame, no pride. As sweet as life is, men who enter "action" are not afraid of death. But hanging bodies will fuel the hatred and the resolve of those who lose their fear of death for a cause: compared to the violent injustices experienced by the world (death by hunger, death due to denied AIDS medication, death in a war) these hanging bodies on a rope seem awefuly calm and peaceful. If anything, each of these ropes shall become the umbilical chord of many a new terrorist.

The Baluchis have been fighting for their rights for over two centuries. They are impoverished by the unforgiving forces of the nature, and by the paranoia of the rest of the nation that has implicitly decided a prosperous Balouchestan will feed the resolve of the secessionists. In addition, Baluchistan is plagued by much of the same drug-lord phenomena that plagues Afghanistan; and survives on the same warrior mentality that has kept Afghanistan alive. The Balouchi problem is not going anywhere by public hangings and jailing of their leaders.

Is it not ironic, that the IRI that sympathizes with the cause of Palestinian suicide bombers subjects the "terrorists" inside Iran (who have been seeking national independence even before inception of the IRI) in a manner that if Israel conducted it would guarantee a call for its "obliteration" by the good and zealous people of the middle east?!?!

In this picture, three men are hanging dead!

From the body language of the crowd, I feel a call for "closure" and "revenge" is addressed. If these desires for revenge and closure didn't exist, the IRI would not dare killing even killers in public. Remember, two weeks ago they killed the Kurds, the heroic teacher, and the innocent woman in hiding and even refused to return their corpses to their families! Then, there may be more to carrying these public executions.

But, what is revenge begetting the rulers, or the men who are cheering on the event of death?

I don't know who will persuade the IRI to do without the capital punishment anytime soon. Perhaps since they are after becoming a super-power, they are competing with China and the USA, the other two major killer-states?!