Perspectives - Serial Killings; Nineteen Years of Ambiguity

This December marks the nineteenth anniversary of the killings known as the serial murders. On December 1, 1998, Dariush Forouhar and Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the Iran Nation Party, were stabbed to death in their home. A few days later, the bodies of Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, members of the Iranian Writers Association, were found after they had left their homes and did not return. Initially, Iranian officials blamed Israel, foreign security agencies, and the Mojahedin-e Khalq for these murders. Mohammad Khatami, the then President of Iran, appointed a committee to investigate the case. Gholamali Darvish Abadi, the Minister of Intelligence at the time, resigned, and the Ministry of Intelligence, under Ali Younesi, issued an unprecedented statement in January 1999, admitting that a group of rogue members within the ministry had been involved in the planning of the murders. This week's program will address the roots of the serial killings, their effects, and consequences, featuring three guests: Sohrab Mokhtari, translator and son of Mohammad Mokhtari, a victim of the serial killings in Germany; Shirin Ebadi, lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate residing in London; and Taghi Rahmani, political analyst in Paris. Mr. Rahmani, my first question is where the roots of the serial killings lie and where they began? If we want to pinpoint a specific time, we must look at the end of the war and the crackdown in response to the Mojahedin-e Khalq operations, during which discussions about cultural invasion emerged in the newspaper Jomhouri-e Islami. The Supreme Leader later referred to cultural invasion as a cultural assault. A project was initiated where security institutions, so-called outside the judiciary and legal system, became involved, and during this period, you witness suspicious murders that even included some so-called 'civilian figures.' However, it perhaps began with the murder of Mr. Sami, then moved to writers, and then to Sunni activists. These murders continued during the reformist period with the intent of creating political chaos and weakening Khatami's government. But there was a process that the Iranian security system employed to eliminate its opponents, which also took place abroad. Until it reached the serial killings, and when this happened within the Ministry of Intelligence, it was led and announced through a statement by Khatami, which provides this brief history of such serial killings in Iran targeting Sunnis, dissenters, writers, and political activists, starting with Dr. Sami... Ms. Ebadi, the Ministry of Intelligence issued a statement saying that the murderers were a few misguided and rogue colleagues. Some Iranian officials also blamed Israel and security agencies or the Mojahedin. Why did Iranian officials introduce foreign elements as the perpetrators of the serial killings? It is very natural. Because these rogue elements were not acting independently; they were committing these heinous crimes under the orders of the highest political authorities in the country. They did not want to accept responsibility, as they have not done so until now. Mr. Mokhtari, your father was killed in these murders. Ayatollah Khamenei, after the murder of your father and Mr. Pouyandeh, stated that these two were not well-known writers that the Islamic Republic would want to deal with and said that these murders were carried out according to a foreign scenario to harm the Islamic Republic. What does Khamenei's statement mean, and why do you think your father had to be killed in such a manner? Well, as Ms. Ebadi mentioned, accepting such responsibility from the beginning was very difficult. Therefore, they tried to attribute these murders to foreign factors. However, it did not take long for many truths to become somewhat clear to everyone, especially at that time when active newspapers, journalists, lawyers, legal experts, and human rights activists pressured and sought to clarify the truths, which led to the rapid acceptance that the Ministry of Intelligence was involved in these murders. Eventually, the Minister of Intelligence resigned, and regarding why my father or Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh or the Forouhars were killed, we still do not know, and this will only become clear when we have sufficient and extensive access to information about the institutions that made these decisions. We need to see on what basis and with what predictions and for what reasons these choices were made and these murders were carried out. Until then, most of our assumptions are just that, as has happened in the past in other countries or even our own. This requires a very long historical process to access the truths of these cases more thoroughly to be able to answer such questions. Mr. Rahmani, what fear did the regime have from individuals like Mohammad Mokhtari, Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, the Forouhars, and the other victims of the serial killings? These murders were committed in a specific sense, referred to as serial killings, which should also include Majid Sharif and also Pirouz Davani; these six individuals during this specific period, when they were eliminated, were primarily to create a crisis in society. This security system, after the war, had cleverly managed to control its opponents. Now, with the advent of the reformist period and the opening of the political space, it was not free to kill anyone. These murders were carried out with a fatwa and a religious decree. This is very important. Even in analyses, it was suggested that they could later approach the national-religious figures and others, even reformists. But for these individuals, due to their positions, they were considered dissenters and those who posed a threat to the regime. On one hand, they said about Majid Sharif that they would kill him so that others would not enter Iran. They would kill them to suppress the so-called leftists or secularists, but Sharif was considered religious in their view. In these murders, you see an intellectual organization behind it, a method of security suppression that sought to further suppress the political challenges of the reformist period. We saw that this method was halted, and although repression continued, it returned to the judiciary, with arrests in another discussion, arrests of journalists, and later to control the reformist space, the Iranian society that controlled civil activists in Iran, so that even reformists within the government would understand their own situation. And this was a method. It was a method that is commonly known and usually practiced worldwide, but in each country, it is done in its own specific ways. And its specific method was that these murders took place, but it was important that when it was exposed, Khatami was essentially forced or inclined to make a deal that the details would not be revealed, that the murders would be limited to these six individuals and would not continue. In other words, these six purges were set aside in the Iranian security system. We know that many individuals were purged in this manner, and this itself was a characteristic, but repression continued in another form. But these murders and their religious form, the religious decree they obtained, and their executive structure, were carried out by unofficial movements, as stated, expressed in great detail, but the government's method was to obscure these murders. After the arrest of the family of Saeed Emami, if we can say it was a foreign job, they tried to dilute it. But they really did not succeed in spreading the issue of the serial killings outside the regime or outside the country in public opinion. This in itself led to the cessation of this type of repression. Shirin Ebadi: Let me clarify, these murders were not intended to undermine Khatami's reformist space. Because they had started before Khatami, and in fact, the history of these murders goes back to the time of Hashemi Rafsanjani and Fallahian. Among them, I remember the issue of murders that occurred before that, such as Ghafar Hosseini, or the issue of the Armenia bus, none of which occurred during Khatami's time. Therefore, to think that this was to suppress the reformist space that was beginning was not the case. On the other hand, I must say that the highest authorities were aware, and as friends pointed out, these murders were carried out with a fatwa. One of the individuals in this fatwa committee was Ayatollah Khoshbakht, who was attempted to be portrayed as a mediator between the leadership and this committee, and thus they claimed that this was done with the knowledge and approval of the highest authorities... Ms. Ebadi, do you think this was not to weaken the reformists, and that the high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic wanted to suppress intellectuals and dissenters? The goal of eliminating dissenters was a political suppression of those who were somehow in the public eye and had public relations and spiritual power. When discussing the accused of the murders and their perpetrators, they mention several points in their interrogations that are certainly documented in the case: one is that they express surprise as to why they are being tried for four murders, saying they are not murderers, they were executing orders. And that is why I say there is no connection to the beginning of Khatami's time. It had started before. However, Khatami's persistence led to the revelation of these murders. You know that I was the lawyer for the Forouhar family. The person who killed the Forouhars was surprised as to why you are trying me? Of course, let me say, they did not call it murder; they called it an operation. They said the operation took place at eleven o'clock at night, and you can look at the payroll; they were given extra pay for this work, in addition to our working hours, we were engaged in operations. Now, why do you call it murder, and why are you trying us? Ms. Ebadi, you mentioned in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that you had seen your name on a list of future assassinations by the Islamic Republic, meaning the assassinations after the serial killings, and this list also had the signature of the then Minister of Intelligence, Mr. Darvish Najafabadi. Can you elaborate a bit on this list? Whose names were on the list, and what kind of list was it? In those interrogation documents, it was asked what your future plans are. The second person, Mr. Alikhani, states that the next person was Shirin Ebadi, who was to be assassinated with a weapon, and from two phone numbers they had, they were completely aware of her plans and, as they put it, 'we were on the subject.' This means it was completely planned, and they went to Mr. Darvish Najafadi and obtained permission to start the operation. Mr. Darvish Najafadi says to wait until Ramadan is over to carry out this operation. This means he confirms it, but postpones the start until after Ramadan. The reason they wanted to kill me, according to the contents of the case, was that they claimed to the minister that Ebadi is a member of the Iranian Writers Association and also a dissenter, and besides, she was the lawyer for Sahabi and Shams al-Wa'izin. And in her legal work, she talks a lot and causes a stir. I must say that when I saw this, I was very saddened because they did not even work according to the legal amount they received from the Ministry of Intelligence and did not pay attention. I was never the lawyer for Mr. Sahabi; I regret that I was not because he was a very honorable and great man. I was a member of the Writers Association, and unfortunately, besides the late Mokhtari and Pouyandeh, several others, including Ghafar Hosseini, were killed from this association. In fact, I can say that in the course of the serial killings, the Writers Association suffered the most damage and casualties. Mr. Mokhtari, where did the complaints of the families of the victims of the serial killings end up? You were supposed to pursue this through international bodies. Has there been any progress? Is this case still open? The case in Iran has been legally closed. As has been announced for years. And from the very beginning, those who did not want these truths to be revealed in Iran tried to prevent this in some way. We know that for five years, one of the lawyers in this case, Dr. Zarafshan, was imprisoned, and there was pressure on other lawyers of the families. And pressure on the families themselves... In any case, this case was declared closed. We have certainly stated from that time that as long as all the truths of this case are not clarified, this pursuit is open for us, this case is open for us, and we have reported this issue to international forums, as well as to the conscience of society. And it is important that we have stated from the beginning that our intention was not revenge. But we think the reason we witnessed so many various atrocities during this entire period, so many innocent people [who were lost]... Ghafar Hosseini's name was mentioned by Ms. Ebadi; Ghafar Hosseini was under interrogation by the intelligence for a long time; I remember when I was very young, they would come to our house after their interrogations to consult with my father, and then they passed away in that manner... This means there was a very precise planning; there were groups in the Ministry of Intelligence that carried out these plans, researched individuals who were active in the Writers Association or institutions, and then made their decisions.