Populations associated with border regions are all at risk of extreme violence. Iran, which executes more people than any country in the world after China, reportedly executed more than 50 Baluchis in 2006 alone. Just recently, the New York Times published an article citing local news media and witnesses who say that around 50 Afghan migrants were murdered and their bodies thrown into a river. Structural racism against non-Persians in Iran also means that Kurds saw the highest number of executions following the 2009 Green protests, even though the movement itself was Persian-led and Tehran-centered. According to Abbas Vali, professor of modern social and political theory at the department of sociology, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, Iranian Kurdistan is treated as a security zone where “the logic of military rule” continues to this day. “It’s something engraved in the mindset of government officials,”continues Vali, “when they smell trouble, they first turn to the Kurds.” This violent racism has also led the government to systematically murder working-class Kurdish kolbers, or laborers who carry heavy goods on their back, many of whom are impoverished children from border town villages. Just in 2016, 42 kolber workers were directly shot dead, 30 were injured, and 22 drowned/died of hypothermia or other related causes.