Content warning: this video contains graphic footage of the 30 September 2022 massacre. It is shared to document human rights violations and crimes against humanity.

On Friday 30 September 2022, in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan, worshippers were leaving Friday prayer. Two weeks earlier, the death of Mahsa Amini had set off the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising. In Zahedan, anger also ran high over accusations that a police commander in Chabahar had raped a Baluch teenage girl. Security forces opened fire from the rooftops on worshippers, protesters and passers-by.

They shot at heads, hearts, necks and chests. Every count published since describes a massacre on a large scale: 87 dead according to Amnesty International, 91 identified by Haalvsh a week later, 96 according to the Baluch Activists Campaign, more than 100 according to HRANA, 107 according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran. At least 17 of the victims were children. The true toll is higher.

The order came from the Islamic Republic itself. Four years on, no one has answered for this massacre before a court.

On 16 September 2026, Amnesty International found that the crackdown on the uprising amounted to crimes against humanity, including the persecution of the Baluch people, and identified 87 Iranian officials who should face criminal investigation. That finding closes four years of deliberate ambiguity. Zahedan was an act of state.

DORNA holds to a simple principle: justice for Baluchistan is justice for all of Iran. The equality of every Iranian citizen before the law, whatever their region, language or faith, is a condition of the democratic transition we are preparing. A transition that left Zahedan without truth or reparation would reproduce the injustice it claims to end. We seek justice, not revenge: truth, accountability, reparation.

That justice does not need to wait. DORNA calls on:

  • European states to support, at the UN General Assembly, the international criminal accountability mechanism for Iran that Amnesty International is calling for;
  • competent European prosecutors to open structural investigations into the Zahedan massacre under universal jurisdiction, building on the officials identified by Amnesty International;
  • platforms and newsrooms to preserve the documentary footage from Zahedan, which is evidence;
  • everyone to sign and share Amnesty International's petition for an international justice mechanism on Iran.

We will never forget. We will not forgive impunity. International justice for Iran.

Sources: Amnesty International (report of 16 September 2026); Haalvsh; Baluch Activists Campaign; HRANA; Center for Human Rights in Iran. Archive footage: Haalvsh.