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

Mohammad Khan Zarghami Baseri

About

Age: 57
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: December 31, 1980
Location of Killing: Qasroldasht, Shiraz, Fars Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Charges: Unknown charge

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 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 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.

    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 1Article 2%viol_ctcidp_2%.

About this Case

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A trusted and well respected notable of Farse region, he wanted to see freedom established in Iran, but he was disillusioned with the outcome of the revolution and did not vote for the Islamic Republic.

The information about Mr. Mohammad Khan Zarghami Baseri’s assassination on December 31, 1980, is based on an electronic form sent to Omid by one of his children and an interview with her. Additional information has been drawn from Mr. Abdollah Shahbazi’s website, who is one of the founders of the Tehran-based Political Studies and Research Institute and its manager from the time of establishment in 1988 until 1998.

Mr. Zarghami Baseri was born in the Baseri tribe in 1923 and had 6 children. In addition to being a farmer, he was an influential figure in the region, the sheriff of his tribe in Qasrodasht Kamin (located in the southern province of Fars). When disagreements or fights broke out among the local residents and tribes, the parties went to Mr. Zarghami Baseri to mediate, as opposed to local state officials and courts. During the monarchy, at the time of the Shah’s land reforms, Mr. Zarghami Baseri was imprisoned and exiled for his disagreement with the state policy. Before the Revolution of 1979, he provided financial support for demonstrations opposing the monarchy. After February 1979, he was disillusioned with the outcome of the revolution, and did not participate in the referendum of April 1979. He even thought of leaving the country and refrained from further political activities.

According to his daughter, Mr. Zarghami Baseri “wanted to lead a peaceful family life. He enjoyed reading. He learned English in prison. He loved Marzieh’s songs” (a well-known Iranian singer).

In the morning of December 31, 1980, Mr. Zarghami Baseri and one of his employees were riding his vehicle toward his farm in Qasrodasht Kamin when they were shot and killed by Revolutionary Guards of Arsenjan (located in Fars Province). Mr. Zarghami Baseri was shot 11 times and his employee (whose name is not known) was shot once in the face. Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s daughter states that after the assassination, the Revolutionary Guards entered their house and expropriated his belongings as well as documents and birth certificates of family members. They sealed the doors to the house. They arrested two family members who had come to the house and took them to Arsenjan. They forced the family members to promise that the latter would not return to Qasrodasht Kamin.

Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s body was left on the ground until the afternoon when state agents transferred it to the local medical center. The interviewee says that she saw her father’s vehicle was full of bullet-holes. She states that the head of the Revolutionary Guards ordered the coroner to identify the cause of death as “laceration of the heart.” Only with much persistence, were family members able to retrieve the body from the officials. The family was told to bury the body in their house in Shiraz. At the funeral, not only did state agents prevent men from attending the ceremony, but they also distributed a leaflet signed by the Revolutionary Guards Corps of Arsenjan. In this leaflet, Mr. Zarghami Baseri was called “a fugitive spy.” Some of Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s male employees wore women’s veil (chador) in order to attend the funeral. He was buried next to his daughter, who had passed when she was 9. State agents reportedly had broken her marble gravestone and taken it away.

The interviewee says that the BBC radio as well as the Voice of Israel announced news of her father’s assassination. Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s properties as well as his brother’s and son’s vehicles were confiscated the day of his assassination. Additionally, his wife’s properties were also “temporarily” confiscated in 1981. More than one year after his death, the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Fars Province gave legitimacy to the confiscations.

Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s assassination and the confiscation on his property gave rise to protests of influential local residents and disagreements among state officials. Mr. Shahbazi emphasizes that “his assassination by ‘unknown’ men was carried out in violation of religious principles and without judicial sentence.” Ayatollah Montazeri also addressed this issue in his Diaries (Los Angeles: Ketab Corp., 2001) where he quotes a religious judge saying, some state officials “wanted to confiscate the Zarghami family’s properties but they could not find any reason for the confiscation, since they had inherited their property from previous generations. In the end, the officials found a Jewish person in the family, five generations before. They said that their property could be confiscated because of that; but I refused. Nevertheless, their property was eventually confiscated.” Local state officials emphasized to Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s wife that higher-ranking officials in Tehran had issued the order to confiscate their property.

On February 26, 1982, a member of the High Judicial Council issued a verdict, over a telephone conversation with the judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Fars concerning the confiscation of Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s property. The latter then wrote the sentence, which reads:

“In the name of God, based on a phone conversation with Hojjatoleslam Mo’men, esteemed member of the High Judicial Council, regarding careful calculation of late Mohammad Khan Zarghami’s illegitimate belongings… [such calculation] is impossible… After some negotiation, he [Hojjatoleslam Mo’men] said, ‘If he [the deceased] had legitimate income… it was spent for all his debauchery and extravaganza, equal to his wealth. Additionally, they [the family] took many belongings after they found out that the belongings were to be confiscated. This is certain and final decision that what is left is totally illegitimate and subject to confiscation.’”

Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s family members were not safe from harassment and unfair treatment of the local officials. In November 1982, when Mr. Zarghami Baseri’s wife, Mr. Agha Bibi Sheibani visited a local office to ask for the return of her confiscated property, she was arrested and detained and 4 months. During her detention, prison officials beat her head against the wall. She died four days after her release from prison due to brain hemorrhage (March 11, 1983). Their children’s property was confiscated in the early 1980s.

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