In
November and December 1998 a number of
Iranian dissidents were killed by agents of the Ministry of
Intelligence in Iran,
they
included:
- Darioush
and Parvaneh Forohar killed on November 22
in their home in Tehran.
- Majid
Sharif who “disappeared”
on November 20; his body was found in a Tehran street on November 25.
- Mohammad
Mokhtari who “disappeared” on December 3;
his body was found in a Tehran
city morgue on December 9.
- Jafar
Pouyandeh, who “disappeared” on December
9; his body was found on December 13 in a suburb of Tehran.
Other suspicious and unsolved murders of
dissidents were put forth by Iran's Writers Association: "Ahmad
Miralaee, Ebrahim Zalzadeh, Ghafar Hosseini, Manouchehr Saneie and his
wife Firoozeh Kalantari, Ahmad Tafazzoli. These killings are known in Iran
as the
“serial murders.” Under pressure from opposition forces,
on January 5, 1999, the Ministry of
Intelligence acknowledged that its agents had perpetrated the murders.
The
authorities arrested eighteen people and tried them in connection with
the
killings. On June 20, 1999, the prosecutor of the Judicial Complex for
the
Armed Forces announced that the mastermind behind the serial killings,
a
high-ranking official of the Ministry of Intelligence, Saeed Emami had
committed
suicide while in custody.
In
January 2002 ‘Workers Left Unity Iran’
and ‘The International Tribunal on Crimes
against Humanity in Iran’ showed a DVD,
smuggled out of Iran,
showing forced confessions from some of these agents. On the occasion
of the 10th
Anniversary of serial political murders in
Iran
we are releasing an electronic
link to the
DVD
and a link to
transcripts of
these ‘confessions’, translated in 2002 by Workers Left Unity,
Iran.
A number of officials named as masterminds of these murders,
have
held ministerial posts in Ahmadinejad's government including
Mostafa
Pour-Mohammadi , who became Ahmadnejad's fisrt Interior Minister.
As we wrote
at the
time :
'Workers Left Unity –
Iran has always maintained
that the
case of serial political murders, including the show trials of last
year, left
many questions unanswered. The horrific tape showing the brutal,
inhumane
attitude of the interrogators of the Islamic regime’s Intelligence
officers,
including Ameli, deputy minister of Intelligence and a man with a
surname,
Azadeh, another senior ministry official, pose serious doubts on the
‘investigations’ carried by the Iranian regime regarding serial
political
murders. The collusion of the reformist faction, lead by Khatami, in
the cover
up of this case incriminates them as much as the more conservative
faction that
probably ordered these murders.'
Workers Left Unity-
Iran 21st
Nov 2008
Film
in .ram format, 22 Mbyte,