HISTORYAT A GLANCE |
Terror and Repression(Part 1.)
Following the fall of Bani Sadr, opposition elements attempted to reorganize
and to overthrow the government by force. The government responded with a policy
of repression and terror. The government also took steps to impose its version
of an Islamic legal system and an Islamic code of social and moral behavior.
Bani Sadr remained in hiding for several weeks. Believing he was illegally
impeached, he maintained his claim to the presidency, formed an alliance with
Mojahedin leader Masoud Rajavi, and in July 1981 escaped with Rajavi from Iran
to France. In Paris, Bani Sadr and Rajavi announced the establishment of the
National Council of Resistance (NCR) and committed themselves to work for the
overthrow of the Khomeini regime. They announced a program that emphasized a
form of democracy based on elected popular councils; protection for the rights
of the ethnic minorities; special attention to the interests of shopkeepers,
small landowners, and civil servants; limited land reform; and protection for
private property in keeping with the national interest. The Kurdish Democratic
Party, the National Democratic Front, and a number of other small groups and
individuals subsequently announced their adherence to the NCR.
Meanwhile, violent opposition to the regime in Iran continued. On June 28,
1981, a powerful bomb exploded at the headquarters of the IRP while a meeting of
party leaders was in progress. Seventy-three persons were killed, including the
chief justice and party secretary general Mohammad Beheshti, four cabinet
ministers, twenty-seven Majlis deputies, and several other government officials.
Elections for a new president were held on July 24, and Rajai, the prime
minister, was elected to the post. On August 5, 1981, the Majlis approved
Rajai's choice of Ayatollah Mohammad Javad-Bahonar as prime minister.
Rajai and Bahonar, along with the chief of the Tehran police, lost their
lives when a bomb went off during a meeting at the office of the prime minister
on August 30. The Majlis named another cleric, Mahdavi-Kani, as interim prime
minister. In a new round of elections on October 2, Hojjatoleslam Ali Khamenehi
was elected president. Division within the leadership became apparent, however,
when the Majlis rejected Khamenehi's nominee, Ali Akbar Velayati, as prime
minister. On October 28, the Majlis elected Mir-Hosain Musavi, a prot�g� of the
late Mohammad Beheshti, as prime minister. Although no group claimed
responsibility for the bombings that had killed Iran's political leadership, the
government blamed the Mojahedin for both. The Mojahedin did, however, claim
responsibility for a spate of other assassinations that followed the overthrow
of Bani Sadr. Among those killed in the space of a few months were the Friday
prayer leaders in Tabriz, Kerman, Shiraz, Yazd, and Bakhtaran; a provincial
governor; the warden of Evin Prison, the chief ideologue of the IRP; and several
revolutionary court judges, Majlis In September 1981, expecting to spark a general uprising, the Mojahedin sent
their young followers into the streets to demonstrate against the government and
to confront the authorities with their own armed contingents. On September 27,
the Mojahedin used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers against
units of the Pasdaran. Smaller left-wing opposition groups, including the
Fadayan, attempted similar guerrilla activities. In July 1981, members of the
Union of Communists tried to seize control of the Caspian town of Amol. At least
seventy guerrillas and Pasdaran members were killed before the uprising was put
down. The government responded to the armed challenge of the guerrilla groups by
expanded use of the Pasdaran in counterintelligence activities and by widespread
arrests, jailings, and executions. The executions were facilitated by a
September 1981, Supreme Judicial Council circular to the revolutionary courts
permitting death sentences for By moving quickly to hold new elections and to fill vacant posts, the
government managed to maintain continuity in authority, however, and by
repression and terror it was able to crush the guerrilla movements. By the end
of 1983, key leaders of the Fadayan, Paykar (a Marxist-oriented splinter group
of the Mojahedin), the Union of Communists, and the Mojahedin in Iran had been
killed, thousands of the rank and file had been executed or were in prison, and
the organizational structure of these movements was gravely weakened. Only the
Mojahedin managed to survive, and even it had to transfer its main base of
operations to Kordestan, and later to Kurdistan in Iraq, and its headquarters to
Paris.
deputies, minor government officials, and
members of revolutionary organizations.
"active members" of guerrilla groups. Fifty
executions a day became routine; there were days when more than 100 persons were
executed. Amnesty International documented 2,946 executions in the 12 months
following Bani Sadr's impeachment, a conservative figure because the authorities
did not report all executions. The pace of executions slackened considerably at
the end of 1982, partly as a result of a deliberate government decision but
primarily because, by then, the back of the armed resistance movement had
largely been broken. The radical opposition had, however, eliminated several key
clerical leaders, exposed vulnerabilities in the state's security apparatus, and
posed the threat, never realized, of sparking a wider opposition movement.
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