Prevention of the 16th Anniversary Ceremony of the Forouhars' Murder

Reports indicate that security forces prevented the holding of the 16th anniversary ceremony for Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar's murder in Tehran on Saturday, December 1st. The ceremony was scheduled to take place at 4 PM at the Forouhars' home. However, Parastoo Forouhar, the daughter of these two prominent political figures, stated in an interview with Radio Farda that this year, too, the commemoration of Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar was obstructed. Last year, after years of preventing the anniversary ceremonies, the administration of Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, granted permission for the 15th anniversary ceremony, but Parastoo mentioned that there were restrictions on movement imposed by the police at that time. The two political figures were murdered on December 1, 1998, by agents of the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence. Parastoo Forouhar said on Saturday that starting from 2 PM, just two hours before the ceremony, there was a heavy presence of security forces at both ends of the street, blocking access, and no one was allowed to enter the house except for a few people who arrived before that time, resulting in no ceremony taking place. She reported that those who came to attend the ceremony were treated harshly and told they could not stand there. She was summoned to the local police station the day before the ceremony and was told that only relatives and close friends should be present and that there should be no 'specific' podium. She did not expect that the ceremony would be completely banned by security forces. Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar were both leaders of the Iran Nation Party and the National Front of Iran. Mr. Forouhar had been arrested several times before the revolution and spent 14 years in prison. He was later released along with other political prisoners and appointed as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the government of Mehdi Bazargan. He was subsequently appointed as a minister and government representative for Kurdistan. However, Mr. Forouhar later became a critic of the Islamic Republic and called for a referendum on the type of government. He was sentenced to prison in 1981 and ultimately, on December 1, sixteen years ago, he and his wife Parvaneh were brutally murdered in their home with knife wounds. This murder was part of a series of killings known as the 'chain murders.' The murders of these two political activists, along with others like Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, were attributed by the Islamic Republic to a 'rogue group' and 'specific agents' within the Ministry of Intelligence, with Saeed Emami being identified as the main responsible party for these murders. After Emami's arrest, it was reported that he ingested cleaning chemicals in prison and committed suicide.