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Iran Focus
 Tehran,
Iran, May 31 – Iranian authorities hanged a man in a prison in the
south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan
which has been the scene of numerous attacks by armed insurgents against
government and security officials.
Abdol-Hamid Narouee was
hanged in Zahedan Prison charged with possession
of an illegal weapon and armed robbery, the official news agency reported
on Tuesday.
Iran
has witnessed escalating unrest in recent months in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive
policies by the theocratic regime.
A Baluchi group opposed to the government of Iran calling itself Jondollah
has claimed responsibility for a string of armed attacks on government
officials including an attack in March on a government convoy, which left
twenty-two government and provincial officials dead and at least seven,
including the governor of the city of Zahedan, critically wounded.
In April, Iran’s
state-run media reported that security forces had killed the group’s leader
Abdolmalek Reigi along
with 11 of its members on the border with Afghanistan.
The claim proved to be false after Reigi
subsequently appeared on an Arabic-language satellite channel denying such rumours.
Separately, the state-run news agency ISNA reported on Tuesday that the
State Supreme Court had upheld an execution sentence for a young man
accused of killing a friend in November 2003.
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