Ayatollah Khamenei. Image Credit: Tasnim News, CC BY 4.0.
Iran has this week announced the completion of another section of the Chahbahar-Zahedan railway, as anti-regime protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in September have shown no sign of ending.
The railway, part of a larger network that form new strategic corridors in Iran, runs through eastern regions of the country which have been rocked by protests in recent weeks.
The regime has reportedly massacred protestors in the southeastern province of Balochistan, within which both Chahbahar and Zahedan fall.
Brutal crackdowns on protestors have been most clear in peripheral provinces like Balochistan in the southeast and Kurdistan in the west, while protestors in the Farsi-speaking central provinces – who make up the bulk of the Islamic Republic’s population – have been less violently treated.
The announcement follows the recent completion of another line from Zahedan to Khash, also in Balochistan, which was inaugurated by president Ebrahim Raisi in late August.
Both lines are thought to be particularly important for connecting Iran with its regional neighbours in both central and south Asia, especially India.
The Fars News Agency reported this week that the Zahedan line was completed, without mentioning the widespread protests in the region, nor the violent state crackdown, spearheaded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s ideological terror army.
