Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Memorial
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Sa'id Amir Shekari

About

Age: 22
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Non-Believer
Civil Status: Unknown

Case

Date of Killing: August 19, 1979
Location of Killing: Kerman-Baqerabad Road, Kerman, Kerman Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting

Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

Documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, the following human rights have been violated in this case:

  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

    UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.

    In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

  • The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

    UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

  • The right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.

    UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.

The right to due process

    • The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

      ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Pre-trial detention rights

  • The right to know promptly and in detail the nature and cause of the charges against one.

    UDHR, Article 9(2); ICCPR, Article 9.2 and Article 14.3.a

  • The right to counsel of one’s own choosing or the right to legal aid. The right to communicate with one’s attorney in confidence

    ICCPR, Article 14.3.b and Article 14.3.d; Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Article 1, Article 2, Article 5, Article 6, and Article 8.

  • The right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense case.

    ICCPR, Article 14.3.b.

  • The right not to be compelled to testify against oneself or to confess to guilt.

    ICCPR, Article 14.3.g.

  • The right not to be subjected to torture and to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

    ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

Trial rights

  • The right to a fair and public trial without undue delay.

    ICCPR, Article 14.1, Article 14.3.c.

  • The right to defense through an attorney or legal aid. The right to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against one, and the right to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on one’s behalf under the same conditions as prosecution witnesses.

    ICCPR, Article 14.3.d and Article 14.3.e.

  • The right to have the decision rendered in public.

    ICCPR, Article 14.1.

Judgment rights

  • The right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.

    ICCPR, Article 14.5.

  • The right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence.

    ICCPR, Article 6.4.

Capital punishment

  • The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

    ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

Correct/ Complete This Entry

Mr. Amirshekari was an avid reader and a political activist, who strongly believed in education and raising public awareness. He would read to the workers after work. Mr. Amirshekari owned a bookstore in Kerman which was set ablaze by revolutionaries in August 1979.

Information regarding the extrajudicial killing of Mr. Sa’eed Amirshekari, son of Golbas Salajeqeh, was obtained from an electronic from submitted to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center by a person close to him (September 27, 2010). News of this murder was also published in Enqelab Eslami newspaper (September 27, 1979). Additional information about this case was obtained from Jomhuri Eslami newspaper (August 9, 18, 21, and 22, 1979); Kar Publication (September 17, 1979); Sahifeye Imam, Volume 9 (August 17, 1979); Ettela’at newspaper (August 18, 1979); Kayhan newspaper (August 29, 1979); Akhbar-e Rooz website (August 21, 2010); Donyaye Eghtessad newspaper (October 4, 2017); Pejvake Iran website (January 20, 2019); Iran Tribunal website (Date of research: August 25, 2021); and research conducted by the Boroumand Center.

Mr. Amirshekari was born on February 20, 1957, in a tribal family in Kerman Province, and had two brothers and a sister. He lost his father when he was approximately 10 years old, and started working in his childhood years as a shepherd along with his brother, in order to make a living and provide for his family. Mr. Amirshekari started being politically active in his adolescence and started a “study group” at schools he attended. He also read to shepherds and laborers. Mr. Amirshekari studied at Tehran University’s Literature Department and was known as a student activist. He dropped out of college in early 1977, however, and started working at the Electrode Factory. (Kar Publication, September 17, 1979; Akbare Rooz, August 21, 2010; Iran Tribunal, August 25, 2021).

Mr. Amirshekari and his two brothers were members of the Fadiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization. According to Kar Publication, the news arm of the Fadiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization, he was an active participant in guerilla activities before the 1979 Revolution, including attacks on Tehran military bases such as Eshratabad military base. (Kar Publication, September 17, 1979).

Mr. Amirshekari owned a bookstore in the town of Pabdana in Kerman County where, according to available information, he sold books “liked by people who held different beliefs” as well as books of the various leftist movements and ideologies. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, August 19, 1979; Akhbare Rooz, August 21, 2010; Iran Tribunal, August 25, 2021).

According to a Kar Publication report, Mr. Amirshekari was arrested on August 9, 1979, by armed members of the Kerman Imam Committee as he was distributing pamphlets. (Kar Publication; Pejvake Iran; Iran Tribunal). The Kerman Islamic Revolutionary Court judge said this about him: “The aforementioned person stated at trial that he was against the philosophy of Islam and favored communist ideology. Therefore, we did not convict him based on his ideology and he was pardoned.” (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, September 27, 1979). According to available information, Mr. Amirshekari was released on August 14, 1979. (Pejvake Iran website, January 20, 2019 ; Iran Tribunal, August 25, 2021).

On August 19, 1979, Enqelab Eslami newspaper reported that two bookstores in Kerman “that sold Tudeh Party, Fadiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization, and Pishgam Students publications” were set on fire by unidentified individuals on August 17, 1979, and that “the bookstores were completely burnt to the ground and sustained heavy damage”. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, August 19, 1979). According to available information, one of these bookstores was Mr. Amirshekari’s. (Pejvake Iran website, January 20, 2019).

Fadaiyan Khalq Organization

The Fadaiyan Khalq Organization, a Marxist-Leninist group inspired by the Cuban Revolution and other Latin American guerrilla movements, and with a commitment to waging urban warfare, was founded in 1971 from the merger of two Communist groups opposed to the Pahlavi regime. In 1981 the organization, which after the Revolution had opted for open political and electoral activity, split over the issues of armed struggle (with one faction negating and disavowing it) and support for the Islamic Republic and the Soviet Union. Three separate branches came into existence: the FKO Majority, FKO Minority, and FKO Guerrilla Organization. The Fadaiyan Khalq Organization Majority considered the Islamic Republic a revolutionary and anti-imperialist regime, and supported it until early 1983. From then on, members of this Party were subjected to attacks and suppression by the Islamic Republic solely on the basis of their political beliefs.

Burning of Bookstores

Months before the 1979 Islamic revolution, certain Islamic groups and individuals, particularly supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Leader of the Revolution, began attacking entertainment centers and bookstores. These activities became more widespread after the Revolution. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center’s research indicates that with the encouragement, instigation, and support of religious and revolutionary authorities, a considerable number of libraries, bookstores, magazine and newspaper stands, and publication houses, were either destroyed, set on fire, or had their books and publications torn up. Most of these attacks targeted leftist publications, particularly those belonging to the Fadaiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization and the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization. (Boroumand Center research).

These attacks especially gathered steam after the Leader of the Revolution’s speech, whose words were considered by his supporters to constitute marching orders. (Boroumand Center research).

In that speech, given on August 17, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini stressed the importance of annihilating those who hold non-religious beliefs, labeling them as infidels. He stated: “If we had acted in a revolutionary manner [from the beginning] when we first destroyed the corrupt [previous] regime and tore down this extremely corrupt dam, and if we had broken the pens of all publications, and had shut down all corrupt magazines and all corrupt press and publications, and had brought their chiefs to trial, and had banned corrupt political parties and had punished their heads and had erected hanging poles in major squares and had plowed and killed the corrupt and those who corrupt others, we would not be having all these troubles and inconveniences … These conspirators are the same as infidels. These subversive plotters in Kurdistan and other places are the same as infidels, and they must be treated with extreme harshness … The Revolution Prosecutor has the duty to ban and shut down all magazines that are on the opposite path of the people and that are conspirators and plotters, all of them; and bring their writers to court and put them on trial.” (August 17, 1979, Sahifeye Noor, Volume 9 ; Ettele’at newspaper, August 18, 1979).

At the time this speech was delivered, in addition to opposition Kurdish political parties and organizations, some of which (such as Komala) were leftist as well, there were other leftist organizations present in Kurdistan in the early months of the Revolution, such as the Fadaiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization, Union of Iran’s Communists, Sahand Organization, Peykar Organization, and Rah-e Kargar Organization. (Boroumand Center research).

After this speech, dozens of publications were banned and many books were banned from being published; a number of authors were prohibited from writing, some temporarily, some permanently. (Boroumand Center research).

Mr. Amirshekari was arrested on August 9, 1979, as he was distributing pamphlets, but was released five days later. He was shot in a flurry of bullets by members of the Kerman Islamic Revolution Committee with an Uzi machine gun as he was coming back from visiting with the workers, one day after his bookstore was set on fire.

Not only did the Leader of the Revolution threaten the press and political parties with extremely harsh treatment, and practically issued the order to attack them, but also, as the Boroumand Center research indicates, none of the individuals who had issued the orders to carry out these attacks and arsons, nor the perpetrators, were brought to trial and punished. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, August 22, 1979 ; Boroumand Center research).

Threats Against Mr. Amirshekari and His Death

Mr. Sa’eed Amirshekari was shot to death on the Kerman – Baqerabad road on August 18, 1979. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, September 27, 1979; Akhbare Rooz, August 21, 2010; Iran Tribunal, August 25, 2021).

According to a Kar Publication report, as he was returning from visiting workers in his four by four, Mr. Amirshekari’s was stopped by an Imam Committee Jeep Station Wagon on the Kerman – Baqerabad road. According to this report, the members of the Committee opened fire on him with an Uzi machine gun, and one of them shot him in the head with a Colt handgun (kill shot). (Kar Publication, September 17, 1979 ; Dontyaye Eghtessad newspaper, October 4, 2017). 

Officials’ Reaction

In a news piece related to the execution of Mr. Amirshakari’s brother, The Kerman Revolutionary Court Chief Judge said this about Mr. Amirshekari’s killing: “He was assassinated by unidentified individuals outside of town.” (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, September 27, 1979).

Not only did the city of Kerman’s police and judicial officers not pursue Mr. Amirshekari’s murder, but in the late hours of the night of August 18, 1979, members of Kerman’s Revolutionary Guards Corps also arrested Mr. Ali Amirshekari, Mr. Amirshekari’s brother, also a member of the Fadaiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, August 21, 1979).

According to a report in the Akhbare Rooz website, interrogators had instructed Mr. Ali Amirshekari during interrogations to either incriminate his brother Mr. Sa’eed Amirshekari in a televised program, or he would be executed. (Akhbare Rooz, August 21, 2010). Mr. Ali Amirshekari was executed on August 29, 1979 in Kerman. Mr. Amirshekari’s other brother, Mr. Hamid Amirshekari, was killed during clashes with the Islamic Republic forces near [the town of] Bukan in June 1983.

At the time, official media accused Mr. Amirshekari of possessing “explosive and combustible materials”. (Enqelab Eslami newspaper, August 21, 1979 ; Kayhan newspaper, August 29, 1979). At the time of Mr. Amirshekari’s assassination and of his brother’s arrest, the Fadaiyan Khalq Guerrilla Organization no longer believed in armed struggle and critiqued [and negated] it. In its research, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center did not find reports of any bombings, murders, or assassinations carried out by members of this Organization in official sources inside Iran, or in sources belonging to other political currents and groups opposed to the Islamic Republic. (Boroumand Center research).

Familys’ Reaction

There is no information regarding Mr. Amirshekari’s family’s reaction.

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*Following negotiations between the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and then-Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, severe and at times armed clashes occurred between the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Peshmerga (the Kurdistan Democratic Party armed forces), especially in the cities of Sanandaj and Paveh (in Kermanshah Province). These clashes were related to the increasing conflicts between the Shiite Islamic Republic and Kurdish organizations and parties in Kurdish regions of western Iran, regarding the rights and the role of minorities in drafting the Constitution, whether the government would be a secular or a religious one, and most importantly, Kurdish autonomy.
Following these clashes (that resulted in a number of casualties), on August 18, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a decree in which he ordered law enforcement and military forces to “go to Paveh and put an end to the insurrection …” In order to provoke the military to use extreme force, he made a threat in that same order: “If you do not start moving toward Paveh with cannon, tanks, and fully equipped forces in the next 24 hours, I will hold everyone responsible … And if anyone disobeys or contravenes this order, I will take revolutionary action against them.” (The book “Sahifeye Imam”, Volume 9, page 285). On August 19, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Kurdistan Democratic Party “unofficial and illegal”, and called it “the Party of the Devil”. He further stated “some of these ‘opponents of Islam’ have opposed the Islamic Republic and have boycotted the [April 1, 1979] Referendum [on the Islamic Republic form of government].” (Ibid, page 311).
On Khomeini’s orders, Hojjatoleslam (a rank below Ayatollah in the Shiite clergy hierarchy) Sadeq Khalkhali was dispatched to western Iran. He stated in an interview with Ettala’at newspaper: “I will go to every region of Kurdistan … and I will arrest everyone who had a hand in this bloody conspiracy and I will make them pay for what they did.” (The book “Ayyam-e Enzeva” (“Times of Isolation”), page 96). According to Mansur Boluri’s report, at least 85 Kurdish citizens were executed by Hojjatoleslam Sadeq Khalkhali within a span of 10 days. Mass executions and severe armed clashes continued in the region for months.

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