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

Faruq Rigi

About

Age: 17
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam (Sunni)
Civil Status: Single

Case

Date of Killing: September 6, 2017
Location of Killing: Arbab Karam Khan Rd, Balochistan Region, Quetta, Pakistan
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 may 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 peaceful assembly. 

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.

  • 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, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion. 

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

  • The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law. 

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

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 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.

  • The right not to be tried or punished again for an offence for which one has already been 

convicted or acquitted. 

ICCPR, Article 14.7.

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

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The life of Faruq Rigi was profoundly altered by the extrajudicial execution of one of his uncles, which ultimately led him to embark on a path of struggle that resulted in his untimely death at the age of 17.

Information about the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Abubakr Rigi Shafa, son of Abdolghani, from Zahedan, married with who children, was obtained from an interview by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with an informed source on two different occasions (10 September 2021 and 10 October 2023). To obtain background information about this case, additional information has been taken from IRNA News Agency (28 August 2014), Fars News Agency (29 August 2014) and from the websites of Persian Al-Arabiya (20 May 2014), Al-Monitor (2017), the report of Minority Rights Group International (2018), the report of the organization Human Rights Watch (1997), CNN, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's interview with Fareed Zakaria (17 January 2024), as well as from the Instagram social network page of Abdolghani Rigi, father of Faruq and Abubakr Rigi, (20 April 2021).

Mr. Rigi was born in 1995 into a Sunni Baluch family. He completed his primary education in Iran and in 2003, due to the activities of his uncle Abdolmalek Rigi and the threats to his family members, he was forced to leave Iran and immigrate to Pakistan. Mr. Rigi continued his education in Pakistan and earned a high school diploma (ABC Interview with an informed source on 10 September 2021 and 10 October 2023). 

In 2013, Mr. Abubakr Rigi, together with others, including his uncle Mr. Abdolra’uf Rigi, founded the Jeish al-Nasr organization. This organization, which split off from Jeish al-Adl, merged back into that same organization after some time. Mr. Rigi was a member of the Jeish al-Adl organization (ABC Interview with an informed source on 10 September 2021).

The Situation of Iran’s Baluch Population

The Baluch ethnicity makes up one to three percent of the country’s population and the majority in Sistan and Baluchistan, where 64-77 percent of residents live below the poverty line. Despite having abundant gas, oil, gold, and marine resources, approximately two thirds of residents lack access to clean drinking water. Economic policies have allowed and caused Sistan and Baluchistan Province to remain one of the most deprived provinces in terms of education, health, and food (Boroumand Center research).

Iran's Baluch minority are mostly Sunni Muslims, whereas the majority of Iran’s population are Shi'a Muslims. Policies and actions from authorities have been restrictive toward the practice of Sunni Islam, e.g. limiting and even blocking the construction of Sunni mosques in majority-Sh’ia areas (including Tehran), arbitrary closure of Sunni prayer halls and celebratory gatherings, and violence from security forces towards groups of Sunnis praying in public (Minority Rights Group; Human Rights Watch: Religious Minorities; Al-Monitor).

Baluch activists have reported that government repression of Sunni Baluch groups had increased since February 1994, when locals gathered at Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, to protest the destruction of a Sunni mosque in Mashhad. Government agents reportedly fired shots into the crowd and detained several activists. Over the years, several religious and political personalities inside and outside the country have been killed, including four Sunni clerics, who died under suspicious circumstances between 1993 and 1995-96. (Boroumand Center and United Nations research; Baluch Campaign article, February 14, 2016). Some Baluch opponents consider the emergence of armed opposition groups to be the result of the central government’s policies, including the repression of religious as well as peaceful civil activities (1), and being denied access to jobs (Boroumand Center research; Minority Rights Group).

Jeish-al-Nasr, Jeish-al-Adl, Jondollah

The Jeish al-Nasr group was a group that had split from a similar group called Jeish al-Adl, which itself had replaced a group called Jondollah, an armed ethnic-religious group opposed to the Islamic Republic.  Jondollah, which had identified itself as the defender of Iran’s Baluch population’s religious and ethnic rights, had engaged in several skirmishes with the Islamic Republic military and law enforcement forces, each time resulting in a number of casualties on both sides. In the course of these conflicts and in order to secure the release of Jondollah Prisoners, the group even took border patrol forces hostage.

After the kidnapping of Abdolmalek Rigi (Abdolmajid Rigi), leader of Jondollah, in 2009, and his execution on June 20, 2010, several of Abdolmalek’s comrades (including his brother, Abdolra’uf Rigi) formed the Jeish al-Adl group in 2012-13. Jeish al-Adl declared itself the ideological heir to Jondollah, “an Islamic movement loyal and obligated to Islamic values,” with defending Iran’s adherents of Sunni Islam and the downfall of the Islamic Republic as two of its stated goals. (2)

After taking five Iranian border patrol personnel hostage in February 2014, and executing one of the patrolmen (3), internal discord in Jeish al-Adl increased and ultimately, in May 2014, a majority of the group’s political section split from its military branch, and another group called the Jeish-al-Nasr was established under the leadership of Abdolra’uf Rigi, who was opposed to the execution of the border patrol officer and the decision-making process in the Jeish al-Adl group. (4)

According to an Al Arabiya website report, simultaneous with declaring its formation on a Facebook page, the group issued an announcement in which it stated: “Jeish al-Nasr is an Islamic movement that believes and is bound by Islamic values, including Jihad or armed conflict against the Islamic Republic regime, and considers itself duty-bound to safeguard Islamic values in its resistance, and emphasizes temperance, moderation, and Ummah Wassat (literally meaning “the people in the middle”, it is interpreted by jurist as meaning “a force for moderation and good”). In an interview with al-Arabiya, Mr. Rigi explained that Jeish al-Nasr’s plan, which leaned toward decentralization and consultative (advisory board-based) management, was to take aim at the “foundation and leadership” of the Islamic Republic, but that it would refrain from committing acts which would incur the public’s hatred, and would respect human rights norms. Abdolra’uf Rigi further explained that Jeish al-Nasr wanted autonomy for the Baluchistan region and the establishment of a confederation in which the Baluch people would be in charge of their own destiny. He also brought up the attainment of the rights of Iran’s adherents of the Sunni faith as a part of the group’s demands. According to the leader of Jeish al-Nasr, the group seeks “the overthrow of the Rule and Guardianship of the High Scholar regime”, because “they are not followers of Ali” and “are the enemies of the entire people of Iran” from his perspective, and because there is no hope of the Islamic Republic fulfilling the Baluch people’s demands. He did not completely rule out, nonetheless, the possibility of dialogue with the government in order to attain the rights of the Baluch people (Persian Al-Arabiya, May 20, 2014).

Two years after Mr. Rigi’s murder in November 2016, the Jeish al-Adl group announced that Jeish al-Nasr had merged with the group (Boroumand Center interview; Persian Al-Arabiya, May 20, 2014).

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

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 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran 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 most cases, there has not been much published, and local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm the theory of state committed crimes. In some instances, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In a few cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial. The evidence presented revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.

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 that ordered the implementation of these crimes. 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 and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” 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.”

At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation.

Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left hand highlight with the same title.

Mr. Abubakr Rigi’s Threat and Extrajudicial Execution

Mr. Abubakr Rigi was shot and killed by unknown individuals along with his brother Faruq Rigi on one of the streets of the city of Quetta, Pakistan called "Arbab Karam Khan Road" on Wednesday, 6 September, 2017. According to an informed source, four occupants of two motorcycles shot Misters Abubakr and Faruq Rigi, who were riding in a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck (ABC Interview with an informed source on 10 September 2021 and 10 October 2023). 

According to the same source, the Information agency had repeatedly threatened to "assassinate all members of the Rigi family" during interrogations of Rigi family members. According to the interviewee, security agents had told the family, "We will hit them so that no one will dare to stand against the government. This was a common practice. They told all the family members that they must cooperate, otherwise they would be considered an accomplice." (ABC Interview with an informed source, 10 September 2021). Abdolghani Rigi, father of Mr. Rigi, referring to his son's joining opposition groups, said that security agencies warned that they would target him if he picked up a weapon (Instagram social network page of Abdolghani Rigi, 20 April 2021). 

Mr. Rigi was injured three years before he was murdered, on 28 August 2014, as a result of an armed attack against his uncle Abdolra’uf Rigi. Abubakr survived, but Abdolra’uf Rigi was killed during the attack. According to some reports, Abubakr was detained in Pakistan for some time following the extrajudicial execution of his uncle Abdolra’uf Rigi (Facebook social network, Cheshm Balochistan, 6 October 2017). According to an informed source, Mr. Rigi’s arrest occurred within the framework of the Pakistani government's policies in relation to Iran (ABC Interview with an informed source, 10 October 2023). 

Abubakr Rigi was 22 years old at the time of his death. His body was buried with his brother Faruq Rigi in a cemetery in Quetta, Pakistan (Interview with an informed source, 10 September 2021). 

Officials’ Reaction

According to an informed source, officials of Iran's Information Agency verbally acknowledged responsibility for the murders of Mr. Abubakr Rigi and his brother Mr. Faruq Rigi (ABC Interview with an informed source, 10 October 2023). The government of the Islamic Republic prevented their funeral ceremony to be held in Iran (ABC interview, 10 September 2021).

In the past, the news of the killing of Abdolra’uf Rigi and the wounding of his nephew Abubakr Rigi on 28 August, 2014 had received wide coverage in Iranian official and unofficial media (including Fars News Agency, 29 August 2014). After this assassination effort, the government’s official news agency claimed that this incident took place in the city of Dalbandin in Pakistan’s Balochistan province during clashes between the two groups "Jeish al-Adl” and “Jeish al-Nasr" (IRNA News Agency, 28 August 2014). 

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on the evening of 16 January 2024 that it had targeted "two important strongholds" of the Jeish al-Adl group with missile attacks. (Let's make sure that the IRGC said this and not the media) In this attack, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic confirmed the occurrence of this attack. Referring to an attack attributed to the Jeish al-Adl group in the county of Rask in Sistan and Baluchistan province  he said that Iran responded appropriately to these events and only "Iranian terrorist groups”  in Pakistan were targeted. (CNN, interview with Fareed Zakaria, 17 January 2024)

Familys’ Reaction

The extrajudicial execution of Abubakr Rigi has not been legally followed-up in Iran or  Pakistan. 

Abdolghani Rigi, warned his sons’ murderers, by creating a page on the Instagram social network and posting a short video expressing hope for the "punishment" of the perpetrators of his children's murder (Instagram social network page of Abdolghani Rigi, 20 April 2021). 

According to an informed source, the murder of Abubakr and Faruq was more of a preventive measure, they were young and hadn’t done many activities, but they were known in Baluchestan because of the name and reputation of Abdolmalek Rigi. "After all, they were close to Abdolmalek Rigi, and at an age where they could attract people in Baluchestan to the opposition using his name and reputation" (ABC Interview with an informed source, 10 October 2023). 

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(1) The Jeish al-Adl group has been led by an individual named Abdorrahim Mollazadeh (alias Salahuddin Faruqi) since its formation in 2012-13. He was born in Rusk County in the south of Sistan and Baluchistan Province.
(2) On March 24, 2014, the group reported the execution of First Sergeant and Border Patrolman, Jamsid Danaifar, after 36 days in captivity. Jeish al-Adl stated that the execution of the Sergeant was in response to the execution of Ali Naru’i (a brother of a member of the group).
(3) In an interview regarding these disagreements, Abdolra’uf Rigi stated: “I will say regarding methodology, that I believed in the division of labor, formation of various sections and division of responsibility, decentralization, respect for the council, and expanding the activities of the various sections, which was opposed to by some people. A month ago, we held a meeting in order to solve the problem, and a council was assembled, but the council’s decisions were not implemented and we ultimately decided to separate.” (Persian Al Arabiya, August 28, 2014).

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