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Chain murders of Iran
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Chain murders of Iran
The chain murders of Iran (Persian: قتلهای زنجیرهای ایران) were a series of 1988–98 murders and disappearances of certain Iranian dissident intellectuals who had been critical of the Islamic Republic system. The murders and disappearances were carried out by Iranian government internal operatives. They were referred to as "chain murders" because they appeared to be linked to each other.
The victims included more than 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens. They were killed by a variety of means such as car crashes, stabbings, shootings in staged robberies, and injections with potassium to simulate a heart attack. The pattern of murders did not come to light until late 1998 when Dariush Forouhar, his wife Parvaneh Eskandari Forouhar, and three dissident writers were murdered over a span of two months.
After the murders were publicized, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei denied the government was responsible, and blamed "Iran's enemies". In mid-1999, after great public outcry and journalistic investigation in Iran and publicity abroad, Iranian prosecutors announced they had found the perpetrator. One Saeed Emami had led "rogue elements" in Iran's MOIS Intelligence Ministry in the killings, but that Emami was now dead, having committed suicide in prison. In a trial that was "dismissed as a sham by the victims' families and international human rights organisations", three Intelligence Ministry agents were sentenced in 2001 to death and 12 others to prison terms for murdering two of the victims.
Many Iranians and foreigners believe the killings were partly an attempt to resist "cultural and political openness" by reformist Iranian president Mohammad Khatami and his supporters, and that those convicted of the killings were actually "scapegoats acting on orders from high within the ministry", with the ultimate perpetrators including "a few well known clerics."
In turn, Iran's hardliners—the group most closely associated with vigilante attacks on dissidents in general, and with the accused killers in particular—claimed foreign powers (including Israel) had committed the crimes.
The murders are said to be "still shrouded in secrecy", and an indication that the authorities may not have uncovered all perpetrators of the chain murders was the attempted assassination of Saeed Hajjarian, a newspaper editor who is thought to have played a "key role" in uncovering the killings. On March 12, 2000, Hajjarian was shot in the head and left paralyzed for life.
The term "chain murders" was first used to describe the murder of six people in late 1998. The first two killed were 70-year-old Dariush Forouhar (secretary general of the opposition party, the Nation of Iran Party), and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari, whose mutilated bodies were found in their south Tehran home on 22 November 1998. Forouhar received 11 knife wounds and Eskandari 24. Their home, which was later ransacked, was thought to be under 24-hour surveillance by the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, thus casting suspicion on that ministry for at least complicity in the murder.
On 2 December 1998, Mohammad Mokhtari, an Iranian writer, left his residence and did not return home. A week later his body was identified at the coroner's office. The next to disappear was Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, an author and "one of the most active translators of the country," whose body was discovered four days after leaving his office on 8 December. Pooyandeh and Mokhtari's bodies were both found around Shahriar, a "mini-city" in the south of Tehran, and both had apparently been strangled. On the day Pooyandeh's body was found, 12 December 1998, fifty writers called on President Khatami to find the perpetrators of the killings.
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Chain murders of Iran
The chain murders of Iran (Persian: قتلهای زنجیرهای ایران) were a series of 1988–98 murders and disappearances of certain Iranian dissident intellectuals who had been critical of the Islamic Republic system. The murders and disappearances were carried out by Iranian government internal operatives. They were referred to as "chain murders" because they appeared to be linked to each other.
The victims included more than 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens. They were killed by a variety of means such as car crashes, stabbings, shootings in staged robberies, and injections with potassium to simulate a heart attack. The pattern of murders did not come to light until late 1998 when Dariush Forouhar, his wife Parvaneh Eskandari Forouhar, and three dissident writers were murdered over a span of two months.
After the murders were publicized, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei denied the government was responsible, and blamed "Iran's enemies". In mid-1999, after great public outcry and journalistic investigation in Iran and publicity abroad, Iranian prosecutors announced they had found the perpetrator. One Saeed Emami had led "rogue elements" in Iran's MOIS Intelligence Ministry in the killings, but that Emami was now dead, having committed suicide in prison. In a trial that was "dismissed as a sham by the victims' families and international human rights organisations", three Intelligence Ministry agents were sentenced in 2001 to death and 12 others to prison terms for murdering two of the victims.
Many Iranians and foreigners believe the killings were partly an attempt to resist "cultural and political openness" by reformist Iranian president Mohammad Khatami and his supporters, and that those convicted of the killings were actually "scapegoats acting on orders from high within the ministry", with the ultimate perpetrators including "a few well known clerics."
In turn, Iran's hardliners—the group most closely associated with vigilante attacks on dissidents in general, and with the accused killers in particular—claimed foreign powers (including Israel) had committed the crimes.
The murders are said to be "still shrouded in secrecy", and an indication that the authorities may not have uncovered all perpetrators of the chain murders was the attempted assassination of Saeed Hajjarian, a newspaper editor who is thought to have played a "key role" in uncovering the killings. On March 12, 2000, Hajjarian was shot in the head and left paralyzed for life.
The term "chain murders" was first used to describe the murder of six people in late 1998. The first two killed were 70-year-old Dariush Forouhar (secretary general of the opposition party, the Nation of Iran Party), and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari, whose mutilated bodies were found in their south Tehran home on 22 November 1998. Forouhar received 11 knife wounds and Eskandari 24. Their home, which was later ransacked, was thought to be under 24-hour surveillance by the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, thus casting suspicion on that ministry for at least complicity in the murder.
On 2 December 1998, Mohammad Mokhtari, an Iranian writer, left his residence and did not return home. A week later his body was identified at the coroner's office. The next to disappear was Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, an author and "one of the most active translators of the country," whose body was discovered four days after leaving his office on 8 December. Pooyandeh and Mokhtari's bodies were both found around Shahriar, a "mini-city" in the south of Tehran, and both had apparently been strangled. On the day Pooyandeh's body was found, 12 December 1998, fifty writers called on President Khatami to find the perpetrators of the killings.