The following is a list of notable people assassinated by the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), is an Iranian dissident organization that was armed until 2003 but has since transitioned into a political group. Its headquarters are currently in Albania. The group's ideology was influenced by Islam and revolutionary Marxism; and while they denied Marxist influences, their revolutionary reinterpretation of Shia Islam was shaped by the writings of Ali Shariati. After the Iranian Revolution, the MEK opposed the new theocratic Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, seeking to replace it with its own government. At one point the MEK was Iran's "largest and most active armed dissident group", and it is still sometimes presented by Western political backers as a major Iranian opposition group.
Sayyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti was an Iranian jurist, poetic philosopher, cleric and politician who was known as the second person in the political hierarchy of Iran after the Revolution. Beheshti is considered to have been the primary architect of Iran's post-revolution constitution, as well as the administrative structure of the Islamic republic. Beheshti is also known to have selected and trained several prominent politicians in the Islamic Republic, such as former presidents Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami, Ali Akbar Velayati, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Ali Fallahian, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi. Beheshti also served as the Secretary General of the Islamic Republic Party, and was the head of the Iranian judicial system. He further served as Chairman of the Council of Islamic Revolution, and the Assembly of Experts. Beheshti earned a PhD in philosophy, and was fluent in English, German and Arabic.
The Iranian revolution, also known as the 1979 revolution, or the Islamic revolution of 1979 was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by the theocratic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ousting of Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy.
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar was a Shia Iranian theologian and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Iran for less than one month in August 1981. Bahonar and other members of Mohammad-Ali Rajai's government were assassinated by Mujahideen-e Khalq.
Sayyid Assadollah Ladjevardi was an Iranian conservative politician, prosecutor and warden. He was one of the officials responsible for the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, and was assassinated by the People's Mujahedin of Iran on 23 August 1998.
Nematollah Nassiri was an Iranian military officer who served as the director of SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency during the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and later the Ambassador of Iran to Pakistan. He was one of the 438 individuals who were arrested and executed in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution.
Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani was an Iranian Shia cleric, writer and conservative and principlist politician who was Prime Minister of Iran from 2 September until 29 October 1981. Before that, he was Minister of Interior in the cabinets of Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. He was the leader of Combatant Clergy Association and Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and also founder and president of Imam Sadiq University.
Massoud Rajavi is an Iranian politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in 1979. After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq. He went missing shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leaving his then wife and co-leader Maryam Rajavi as the public face of the MEK.
Fadayan-e Islam is a Shia fundamentalist group in Iran with a strong activist political and terrorist orientation. The group was founded in 1946, and registered as a political party in 1989. It was founded by a theology student, Navvab Safavi. Safavi sought to purify Islam in Iran by ridding it of 'corrupting individuals' by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading intellectual and political figures.
Numerous civilians, including men, women, children, government officials, activists, secular intellectuals and clerics have been victims of assassination, terrorism, or violence against non-combatants, over the course of modern Iranian history. Among the most notable acts of terrorism in Iran in the 20th century have been the 1978 Cinema Rex fire and the 1990s chain murders of Iran.
On 28 June 1981, a powerful bomb went off at the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) in Tehran, while a meeting of party leaders was in progress. Seventy-four leading officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran were killed, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was the second most powerful figure in the Iranian Revolution. The Iranian government first blamed SAVAK and the Iraqi regime. Two days later, on 30 June, the People's Mujahedin of Iran was accused by Khomeini of being behind the attack. Several non-Iranian sources also believe the bombing was conducted by the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
Following the Iranian revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran in February 1979, was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" from this time until 1982 or 1983 when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, consolidated power. During this period, Iran's economy and the apparatus of government collapsed; its military and security forces were in disarray.
Mohammad Montazeri was an Iranian cleric and military figure. He was one of the founding members and early chiefs of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was assassinated in a bombing in Tehran on 28 June 1981.
The following lists events that happened during 1981 in Iran.
Mir Asadollah Madani Dehkharghani was an Iranian politician and Shia cleric. He was the second Imam Jumu'ah of Tabriz, the Imam Jumu'ah of Hamadan, the representative of the Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan for less than a year, and a member of the Muslim People's Republic Party. Madani was also Hamadan province's representative in the first term of the Assembly of Experts.
Jamaran Hussainiya was the house of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Jamaran village. On 23 January 1980, Ayatollah Khomeini went to Tehran from Qom to cure a heart ailment. According to doctors recommendation, the weather in Qom did not suit him. The house of Imam Khomeini was next to the Hussainiya in Jamaran village. The house was linked to a large mosque by a metal platform. Imam Khomeini often walked up a flight of stairs leading from his house to the balcony of the mosque, from which he often spoke.
The office of Mohammad Javad Bahonar, Prime Minister of Iran, was bombed on 30 August 1981 by the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), killing Prime Minister Bahonar, President Mohammad Ali Rajai, and six other Iranian government officials. The briefcase bombing came two months after the Hafte Tir bombing, which killed over seventy senior Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti, then Iran's second-highest official. It is also reported that the director general of the prime minister's administration and an elderly woman bystander outside the building were killed.
On 27 June 1981, in the Abuzar Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Ali Khamenei was injured after he gave a speech for prayers, when a bomb placed on the tape recorder in front of him exploded, damaging his arm, vocal cords and lungs.
Ruhollah Khomeini's life in exile was the period that Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini spent from 1964 to 1979 in Turkey, Iraq and France, after Mohamed Reza Shah Pahlavi had arrested him twice for dissent from his “White Revolution” announced in 1963. Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the government, and returned to Tehran from exile in 1979.
Abdol Hossein Dastgheib. He was appointed Imam of Friday Prayer and one of the representatives of the Supreme Leader in Shiraz. He was a Mujtahid, expert in Arabic language, theology, revealed texts, and the principles of jurisprudence. He was killed by the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
Soureh Mehr Publishing Company (Original Text in Persian, 2000)