Faramarz Aqa'i Donya'i: One Person’s Story

Faramarz Aqa'i Donya'i

About

Age: 22

Nationality: Iran

Religion: Presumed Muslim

Civil Status: Unknown

Case

Date of Killing: July 8, 1987

Location of Killing: Karachi, Pakistan

Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting

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”.

About this Case

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Mr. Aqa'i Donya'i was a nurse from the city of Esfahan, and was a member of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization.

Information regarding the killing of Mr. Faramarz Aqai' Donya'i was published in the official website of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (undated; July 3, 2018) and Asoo (February 1, 2019). Additional information about this assassination was obtained from Raha News Agency website (March 23, 2021); the International Peace Studies Center (December 6, 2018); Islamic Revolution Documents Center (July 7, 2007); United Press International News Agency (July 9, 1987); and the Washington Post (July 23, 1987).

Mr. Aqai Donya'i was a 22 year old nurse from Esfahan. He was a member of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization. (Official website of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organizatio, undated).

The Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) was founded in 1965. This organization adapted the principles of Islam as its ideological guideline. However, its members’ interpretation of Islam was revolutionary and they believed in armed struggle against the Shah’s regime. They valued Marxism as a progressive method for economic and social analysis but considered Islam as their source of inspiration, culture, and ideology. In the 1970s, the MKO was weakened when many of its members were imprisoned and executed. In 1975, following a deep ideological crisis, the organization refuted Islam as its ideology and, after a few of its members were killed and other Muslim members purged, the organization proclaimed Marxism as its ideology. This move led to split of the Marxist-Leninist Section of the MKO in 1977. In January of 1979, the imprisoned Muslim leaders of the MKO were released along with other political prisoners. They began to re-organize the MKO and recruit new members based on Islamic ideology. After the 1979 Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the MKO accepted the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini and supported the Revolution. Active participation in the political scene and infiltration of governmental institutions were foremost on the organization’s agenda. During the first two years after the Revolution, the MKO succeeded in recruiting numerous sympathizers, especially in high schools and universities; but its efforts to gain political power, either by appointment or election, were strongly opposed by the Islamic Republic leaders. *

Mr. Aqa'i Donya'i’s Death

Mr. Faramarz Aqai' Donya'i was killed on Wednesday, July 8, 1987, in Karachi, Pakistan, in an armed attack by members and supporters of Pakistan’s Tahreek Jafaria Party on the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO) bases. (Islamic Revolution Documents Center, July 7, 2007; official website of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization, July 3, 2018; Asoo, February 1, 2019).

According to a Washington Post report, on July 6, 1987, approximately one hundred thousand supporters of Pakistan’s Tahreek Jafaria Party assembled in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, and openly supported Khomeini and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The Party’s spokespersons warned that they would not tolerate any opposition to Khomeini and the Iranian regime whatsoever. Two days later, 13 MKO bases in the cities of Karachi and Kuweiteh were simultaneously subjected to armed attacks, resulting in the death of two people and the wounding of 30 Party members. (The Washington Post, July 23, 1987).

Pakistan’s Tahreek Jafaria

Pakistan’s Tahreek Jafaria was a Shiite political organization that was founded in 1984, and led by Arif Hussain Al-Hussaini after a split in the Tahreek Nefaz-e Fiqh-e Jafaria (“The Party for the Implementation of Jafari (Shiite) Islamic Law”). The Tahreek-e Nefaz-e Fiqh-e Jafaria was founded in March 1979, inspired by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. After the Party leader’s death in 1984, the movement was split into two groups. The religious faction was led by Seyed Hamid Ali Shah Mussavi. The political faction led by Arif Hussain Al-Hussaini, supported by Ayatollah Khomeini, founded the Pakistan’s Tahreek Jafaria. Arif Hussain Al-Hussaini, who had studied in [the city of] Qom [in Iran, one of the two major centers for Shiite seminary studies, the other being the city of Najaf in Iraq], and had studied under Ayatollah Khomeini in Najaf, was shot and killed by unidentified individuals at Peshawar’s Dar-ol Ma’arif Islamiah seminary on August 5, 1988. When Pervez Musharraf banned the group’s activities in 2002, the Party changed its name to Threek-e Eslami (“Islamic Party”).

Iranian Officials’ Reaction

There is no information available regarding the Iranian government’s reaction.

Pakistani Officials’ Reaction

The Karachi Police arrested 40 individuals with Iranian, Iraqi, and Pakistani nationality in connection with the attacks. The Police also recovered and confiscated “five automatic rifles made in the Soviet Union, 31 rocket launchers, five Uzi weapons made in Israel, ammunition, and other flammable materials”. (United Press International News Agency, July 9, 1987).

According to Pakistani Police, 13 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were arrested in the town of Kuweiteh. In spite of these arrests, the government of Pakistan did not make an open protest to the Iranian government, and began rounding up a significant number of Iranians in the city of Karachi who were opposed to the Iranian government. (The Washington Post, July 23, 1987).

MKO’s Reaction

Mas'ud Rajavi, the head of the MKO, sent a letter to Muhammad Zia-ul Haq, then-President of Pakistan, protesting the attacks and holding the Iranian regime responsible, and demanding that the attackers be arrested. (United Press International News Agency, July 9, 1987).

Familys’ Reaction

There is no information regarding Mr. Aqai' Donya'i’s family’s reaction to his death.

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*The exclusion of MKO members from government offices and the closure of their centers and publishing houses, in conjunction with to the Islamic Republic authorities’ different interpretation of Islam, widened the gap between the two. Authorities of the new regime referred to the Mojahedin as “Hypocrites” and the Hezbollahi supporters of the regime attacked the Mojahedin sympathizers regularly during demonstrations and while distributing publications, leading to the death of several MKO supporters. On June 20, 1981, the MKO called for a demonstration protesting their treatment by governmental officials and the government officials’ efforts to impeach their ally, President Abolhassan Banisadr. Despite the fact that the authorities called this demonstration illegal, thousands came to the streets, some of whom confronted the Revolutionary Guardsmen and Hezbollahis. The number of casualties that resulted from this demonstration is unknown but a large number of demonstrators were arrested and executed in the following days and weeks. The day after the demonstration, the Islamic Republic regime started a repressive campaign – unprecedented in modern Iranian history. Thousands of MKO members and sympathizers were arrested or executed. On June 21, 1981, the MKO announced an armed struggle against the Islamic Republic and assassinated a number of high-ranking officials and supporters of the Islamic regime.

In the summer of 1981, the leader of the MKO and the impeached President (Banisadr) fled Iran to reside in France, where they founded the National Council of Resistance. After the MKO leaders and many of its members were expelled from France, they went to Iraq and founded the National Liberation Army of Iran in 1987, which entered Iranian territory a few times during the Iran-Iraq war. They were defeated in July 1988 during their last operation, the Forugh Javidan Operation. A few days after this operation, thousands of imprisoned Mojahedin supporters were killed during the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988. Ever since the summer of 1981, the MKO has continued its activities outside of Iran. No information is available regarding members and activities of the MKO inside the country.

In spite of the “armed struggle” announcement by the MKO on June 20, 1981, many sympathizers of the organization had no military training, were not armed, and did not participate in armed conflict.

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Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran