Zahedan

Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran, a remote border region sharing frontiers with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is the largest city in Iran's most ethnically Baloch province, home to a Sunni Muslim majority in a Shia-majority country, and historically a site of political tension between the central government and the Baloch minority. On 12 May 2026, Abduljalil Shahbakhsh, a Baloch detainee, was secretly executed at Zahedan prison 55 days after his arrest on wartime espionage charges.

Zahedan's political history includes the Bloody Friday massacre of 30 September 2022, when IRGC forces opened fire on worshippers leaving a mosque, killing at least 66 people in what became one of the most documented single incidents of the Mahsa Amini protests. The city has remained under heightened security since. Its Baloch demographics and Sunni religious identity make it a focal point for the IRGC's wartime moharebeh ("enmity against God") charges, which have been applied disproportionately in ethnic-minority regions since February 2026.

The prison system in Zahedan processes cases from the broader Sistan-Baluchestan region, one of Iran's most economically deprived provinces. Hengaw's documentation of Shahbakhsh's execution places Zahedan alongside Urmia (West Azerbaijan) as the two cities where Iran's wartime ethnic-minority political execution cluster of 11-13 May took place.