Chain murders

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With the term chain murders ( Persian قتل‌های زنجیره‌ای Ghatlhaye Zanjirehei , DMG qatlhā-ye zanǧire'i ) is a systematic series of murders and enforced disappearances in Iran in the 1990s, which mainlyfell victim toopposition intellectuals . Several intelligence officials were convicted of murder in a highly controversial trial in 2001. The deputy minister of information, Said Emami , who is said to have committed suicide in prison, was officiallynamedas her ostensibly sole responsible employer. However, it is widely believed that the commanders came from the highest ranks of the Iranian government. Since the murders of the dissidents were by no means to be perceived as ordered by the state, the executing secret service proceeded undercover . The types of murder used included staged car accidents, robberies with shootings, executions by knife stabbing, strangulation, and lethal injections with a potassium compound that were used to simulate a heart attack.

Dariusch Foruhar
Parvaneh Eskandari Foruhar

history

Although the systematic series of murders stretched over several years and the list of victims already included 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists and ordinary citizens, the situation only came to a head towards the end of 1998 when three opposition writers ( Mohammad Mochtari , Mohammad Dscha'far Puyandeh , Javad Sharif) as well as the former labor minister Dariusch Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari Foruhar were murdered within two months.

After a public outcry, combined with journalistic investigations in Iran and an increase in international attention, the prosecutors announced in mid-1999 that Said Emami , the deputy minister of information at the time , was solely responsible for these activities of the Iranian information and security ministry VEVAK . After his suicide in prison, however, he could no longer be held accountable. In a trial that "the families of the victims and international human rights organizations called a farce" and whose output they largely rejected, three agents of the Intelligence and Security Ministry in 2001 were for the time being the death of two and 12 other officials of the MOIS that the death Victims involved were sentenced to prison terms. Iran's Supreme Court converted two death sentences to life imprisonment in 2003.

With the presidency of Mohammed Chatami, the movement 2. Khordad (the movement around Chatami) had emerged since 1997 , which campaigned for more cultural and political freedoms. Many Iranians and non-Iranians see the chain killings as an attempt by the state to bring this reform movement to a standstill and that “the scapegoats for the systematic murder of dissidents and intellectuals acted on orders from above”, whereby “above” meant the main perpetrators, which "included some prominent clerics." The hardliners, or the clergy primarily associated with these killings, claimed that "foreign powers," particularly Israel, committed these crimes.

One sign that the authorities did not fully uncover the serial killings was the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Said Hajjarian , a newspaper publisher and former high-ranking official of the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security, who played a key role in coming to terms with the chain killings. On March 12, 2000, Hajjarian was shot twice at close range from a passing motorcycle in downtown Tehran. He survived the attack, but has been paralyzed since then.

The term chain murder has become imprinted on the Iranian population as the first victims were found strangled.

process

The trial, initiated by Akbar Ganji's and Said Hajjarian's publications, resulted in the conviction of 13 of the 18 defendants (all intelligence officials), three of them death. The appeals court changed the death penalty to ten years' imprisonment and the other sentences to short sentences. The man behind whom Ganji described could never be identified, in particular through the deletion of the statements of Said Emami , the leading secret service employee in the trial files, and his suicide in pre-trial detention using depilatory agents - as the official version reads.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Niusha Boghrati: Iran: Crackdown information . In: Worldpress.org . Status: October 26, 2006, accessed on August 10, 2008
  2. ↑ Amil Imani: T&A: Iran sets to breed Islamic Terror . In: Think & Ask.com . Status: July 2004, accessed on August 10, 2008
  3. ↑ Iran Report 2001 . In: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty . As of February 5, 2001, accessed August 10, 2008
  4. ↑ Ardeshir Gholipoor: Write On: Letters to Green Left Weekly - Pirooz Davani . In: Greenleft.org . October 1, 2003, accessed August 10, 2008
  5. ↑ Elaine Sciolino: Persian Mirrors. The Elusive Face of Iran In: Free Press . 2000, p. 241 (English)
  6. ↑ The estimate of the number of victims varies. According to Marzeporgohar.org : “103 is the estimated number of victims of serial (chain) murders. However, the course of the murders and the time of death of 57 victims is known. Little information is available on the other 46 victims who disappeared for some time and whose abused bodies were gradually found on the outskirts of Tehran. The actual number of victims is still unknown and could be far more. "
  7. ↑ Douglas Jehl: Killing of three rebel writers turns hope into fear in Iran. New York Times , December 14, 1998, accessed August 10, 2008 .
  8. ↑ Sima Sahebi: You will answer, one day . In: The Iranian . December 12, 2002, accessed August 10, 2008
  9. ↑ Ganji identified Fallahian as the Master Key in chain murders . In: Iran-Press-Service . December 2000, accessed August 10, 2008
  10. ↑ Religious Freedom: Iran - Return to Terror . In: Allianz Spiegel - information service of the Austrian Evangelical Alliance . No. 73, 21st year. March 1, 2006. PDF , accessed August 10, 2008
  11. ↑ Middle East | Iranian killers spared death penalty . In: BBC News . Status: January 29, 2003, accessed August 10, 2008
  12. ↑ Iran - 2003 Annual report . ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Reporters Without Borders . Status: May 2, 2003, accessed August 10, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / en.rsf.org
  13. ↑ Douglas Jehl: Killing of three rebel writers turns hope into fear in Iran . In: New York Times . December 14, 1998, accessed August 10, 2008
  14. ↑ Middle East | Iranian killers spared death penalty . In: BBC News . Status: January 29, 2003, accessed August 10, 2008
  15. ↑ Ganji identified Fallahian as the Master Key in chain murders . In: Iran-Press-Service . December 2000, accessed August 10, 2008
  16. ↑ Middle East | Iranian killers spared death penalty . In: BBC News . Status: January 29, 2003, accessed August 10, 2008
  17. ↑ Middle East | Who wanted Hajjarian dead? . In: BBC News . Status: March 12, 2000, accessed August 10, 2008