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

Yvonne Stein

About

Age: 45
Nationality: France
Religion: Unknown
Civil Status: Single

Case

Date of Killing: July 8, 1980
Location of Killing: Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Charges: Unspecified offense

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.”

—--------------------------------------------

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 liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1.

  • The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.

    UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1.

  • The right not to be punished for any crime on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time it was committed.

    UDHR, Article 11.2; ICCPR, Article 15, Article 6.2.

  • 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.

About this Case

Correct/ Complete This Entry

Yvonne Stein is one of two individuals killed during the assassination attempt of Shapour Bakhtiar, which took place on July 18, 1980 in the suburb of Paris, Neuilly sur Seine.

The information concerning this assassination attempt was collected by the French press (Le Figaro July 19, 1980, France Soir July 18,1980 and July 19,1980, Le Monde July 19, 1980, February 27, 1982, March 5, 1982, March 12, 1982, L’Express from June 14 to June 20, 1980 and of July 26, 1980 to August 1, 1980).

A five-member terrorist commando group composed of: Anis Naccache, a Lebanese Christian; Nejad Tabrizi, an Iranian member of the Revolutionary Guards Corp; Fawzi El Satari, a Palestinian; along with Salah Eddine El Kaara and Mohamed Jenab, either Syrian or Lebanese according to different sources, carried out the July 18, 1980 attack at the apartment building in Neuilly sur Seine where Shapour Bakhtiar resided.

The commando group arrived at the building at 8:45 am, carrying silencer guns and press cards from the newspaper L’Humanité (affiliated to the French Communist Party). The police officers assigned to Bakhtiar’s protection allowed them to enter lobby where another office was in charge of informing Bakhtiar of visitors using the intercom. Before he could call Bakhtiar’s apartment, the guard was shot. The commando group reached the second floor, where Bakhtiar’s apartment was located, and mistakenly knocked on his neighbor’s door. The commando shot Yvonne Stein dead as soon as she opened the door and also wounded her sister. When the commando finally rang the door bell of Bakhtiar’s apartment, the latter’s cousin, suspicious of the early-hour visit, attached the door’s security chain before opening it. The commando shot through the door crack but failed to gain access to the apartment and complete its mission.

The members of the commando group were arrested as they were leaving the building. They were detained and interrogated by the French police. At all stages of the judicial process, they claimed responsibility for their acts. They were charged with murder by the Criminal Court of Hauts de Seine, which held its hearings from February 5 to March 10, 1982. The accused refused to attend their trial (except for one hearing), deeming the Court incompetent, since, according to them, ‘only Allah is a judge’. All the members of the commando were sentenced to life imprisonment except for Fawzi El Satari who was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment.

Yvonne Stein’s name is in OMID along with victims of violations of human rights by the Islamic Republic of Iran, because the available information indicates that she was shot by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the course of the assassination attempt against Shapur Bakhtiar. Responsibility for the assassination attempt was claimed by Iranian authorities.

During the only hearing he attended, the head of the commando group, Naccache, argued that the assassination plan was based on a verdict issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal in Tehran. (Le Monde, March 10, 1982)

Responsibility for Shapour Bakhtiar’s assassination attempt was claimed immediately on July 19, 1980 in a communiqué issued by the Revolutionary Guards and read on the official Radio-Tehran.

In an interview given to Express magazine and published during the week of June 14-20, 1980, Ayatollah Khalkhali, designated by Khomeini as the Head of the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal, stated that Bakhtiar was on his blacklist and that a commando group was in charge of killing him (p 141).

Le Figaro on July 19, 1980, also mentioned the list including Bakhtiar’s name as well as some relatives of the former Shah. Khalkhali said: "I have sent a commando to get him, he can not escape us".

Furthermore, in an interview given to the newspaper Le Monde on December 1, 1992, Anis Naccache explained that "At the time, killing the former Prime Minster of the Shah was a political necessity and was legally justified".

Anis Naccache made the headline news again during a bombing campaign that hit France between February 1985 and May 1986 killing 14 and injuring 335 people. Responsibility for these attacks was claimed by Islamist groups close to the Lebanese Hezbollah, to whom the Islamic Republic provides ideological guidance and logistical support. In their claims, those responsible for the bombings called for the liberation of three individuals imprisoned in France, including Anis Naccache of the Jihad (Didier Bigo in Culture and Conflicts n°4 (1992) pp. 147-173).

On July 27, 1990, President Mitterand pardoned Anis Naccache, the leader of the commando group and his accomplices. Naccache left for Tehran and has reportedly lived between the Iranian capital and Beirut ever since. On August 6, 1991 Shapour Bakhtiar, and his assistant, Soroush Katibeh, were assassinated in Suresnes (a Paris suburb where Bakhtiar moved after the 1980 attempt on his life). The assassination was carried out by members of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corp.

Correct/ Complete This Entry ❯