By Staff Writer
Over the weekend, the Iranian regime’s security forces killed and injured a number of impoverishes border couriers, known as ‘Kulbars’, and slaughtered some 200 of their horses in Iran’s western border region under the pretext of combatting the smuggling of goods.
On Sunday, May 20, one Kulbar, identified as Ramin Sanji from the city of Urmia, was killed and another one was shot and injured in the chest in the border region of Targur.
According to a separate report in local Iranian Kurdish media, on Saturday, May 19, Iranian security forces fired upon a group of Kulbars in Piranshahr region, resulting in severe injury to one of them. The injured man was identified as Ali Hassanzadeh.
According to the same report, security agents seized over 350 horses in the villages of Mirabad and Kheutgah. The agents proceeded to slaughter 120 horses in Kheutgah and around 80 houses in Mirabad.
The regime’s agents seized the belongings of the horse owners who are from Oshnavieh and Piranshahr regions.
The horses’ corpses were abandoned at the site of the slaughter.
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This is not the first incident of Iranian border guards slaughtering horses belonging to Kulbars.
According to a report on May 5 in the state-run Iran Newspaper, 90 horses were killed by border guards in three spells over a one-month period.
Osman Mozain, a lawyer, told the newspaper that the horses were used to travel in the province’s mountainous regions where there are no roads. He said: “Farmers use horses and mules in these areas to carry loads.”
Mozain said some horses were killed even though they were not used to transfer goods over the border. He added: “The reason security forces give is that these horses are used to carry goods for smuggling.”
“First of all, a crime has not been committed, because the horses and mules were outside the countryside grazing. Even some of them were tied up with ropes, and the horses were not loaded with any goods.”
“So, we cannot impose a punishment before a crime is committed,” he added. On the other hand, if a crime is committed, the penalty is to confiscate the goods and pay a fine, he said.
Mozain did not consider the slaughter of horses and mules in the province as a new incident and said that six years ago, 60 mules and horses were slaughtered in the village of Ghale Rash near Sardasht.
