Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou
Encyclopedia
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (Kurdish
:عەبدولڕەحمان قاسملوو/Ebdurehman Qasimlú) (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) was a Kurdish
political leader.
Ghassemlou was the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
(حیزبی دیموکڕاتی کوردستان - حدک/Partiya Demokrata Kurdistana Îranê - PDKÎ) from 1973 to 1989, when he was assassinated by perpetrators thought to be agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran
.
, West Azarbaijan, Iran, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was instructed in a Quranic school. He was the son of Mohammad Vesugh, a wealthy and landowner Kurd . Ghassemlou started his university studies in France
, and pursued them in Czechoslovakia
, where he met his wife Helen Krulich. They had two daughters together, Mina (1953) and Hewa (1955).
He knew nine languages including Kurdish
, Persian
, Turkish
, Azerbaijani
, Arabic
, French
, English
, Russian
, Czech
and was familiar with German
and Slovakian.
political field. In 1973, during the Third Congress of the PDKÎ, he was elected to the position of Secretary General of the party, a position to which he was re-elected several times until his assassination.
In 1979, his party supported the revolution
which ended in the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. However, the party boycott
ed the referendum for the new constitution
. This was the start of confrontation of the party and the new regime, which ended in a military oppression of the party by the central government. Ayatollah Khomeini declared a "holy war" on the separationist Kurds. Thousands of executions and massacres followed in Kurdistan, which were continued up to 1984 in the middle of Iran-Iraq war
(1980–1988).
, on December 28, December 30 and January 20. Another meeting was set up for July 13, again in Vienna
.
The Tehran delegation was as before, namely Mohammed Jafar Sahraroudi and Hadji Moustafawi, except that this time there was also a third member : Amir Mansur Bozorgian whose function was that of bodyguard. The Kurds also had a three-man delegation : Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, his aide Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar (member of the PDKI Central Committee) and Fadhil Rassoul, an Iraqi university professor who had acted as a mediator.
The next day, 13 July 1989, in the very room where the negotiation took place Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was killed by three bullets fired at very close range. His assistant Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar was hit by eleven bullets and Fadhil Rassoul by five. Hadji Moustafawi succeeded in escaping. Mohammad Jafar Sahraroudi received minor injuries and was taken to hospital, questioned and allowed to go. Amir Mansur Bozorgian was released after 24 hours in police custody and took refuge in the Iranian Embassy.
.
The PDKÎ Deputy Secretary General, Sadegh Sharafkandi, succeeded Ghassemlou as Secretary General (he was assassinated on September 17, 1992). Abdullah Ghaderi Azar and Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou were buried on July 20 in Paris
at Père Lachaise Cemetery
.
The three Iran
ian representatives in the negotiations with the Kurdish
leaders could return to Iran
as free people, one of them had never been in custody, one was escorted to the Vienna
airport nine days after the crime by Austria
n police and the third, after one night of arrest, spent a few months in the Iran
ian embassy in Vienna
before he disappeared from Austria
. Warrants for their arrest were not issued before November 1989. 20 years after the triple assessination they have not been executed, still. Contrary to the German Mykonos-trial after the murder of Ghassemlou's successor Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi in Berlin
the crime in Vienna
was never clarified by any court. The Mykonos verdict of April 10, 1997 clearly states the responsibility of the then Iran
ian government for the murders in Berlin
and in Vienna
.
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
:عەبدولڕەحمان قاسملوو/Ebdurehman Qasimlú) (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) was a Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
political leader.
Ghassemlou was the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan , abbreviated as PDKI, KDPI, PDK-I, is a Kurdish political party in Iranian Kurdistan which seeks the attainment of Kurdish national rights within a democratic federal republic of Iran....
(حیزبی دیموکڕاتی کوردستان - حدک/Partiya Demokrata Kurdistana Îranê - PDKÎ) from 1973 to 1989, when he was assassinated by perpetrators thought to be agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Islamic republic
Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including the Islamic Republics of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian...
.
Early and private life
Born in UrmiaUrmia
- Demographics :According to official census of 2006, the population of Urmia is about 871,204.- Language :The population of Urmia is mainly Azerbaijani people, with Kurdish, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian minorities...
, West Azarbaijan, Iran, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was instructed in a Quranic school. He was the son of Mohammad Vesugh, a wealthy and landowner Kurd . Ghassemlou started his university studies in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and pursued them in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, where he met his wife Helen Krulich. They had two daughters together, Mina (1953) and Hewa (1955).
He knew nine languages including Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and was familiar with German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Slovakian.
Political life
Ghassemlou went back to Kurdistan in 1952, after completing his studies. He then spent several years as an active militant in the KurdishKurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
political field. In 1973, during the Third Congress of the PDKÎ, he was elected to the position of Secretary General of the party, a position to which he was re-elected several times until his assassination.
In 1979, his party supported the revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
which ended in the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. However, the party boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
ed the referendum for the new constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
. This was the start of confrontation of the party and the new regime, which ended in a military oppression of the party by the central government. Ayatollah Khomeini declared a "holy war" on the separationist Kurds. Thousands of executions and massacres followed in Kurdistan, which were continued up to 1984 in the middle of Iran-Iraq war
Iran-Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the twentieth century...
(1980–1988).
Assassination and funerals
In 1988, after the war had ended, the Iranian government decided it was time to negotiate. Several meetings followed in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, on December 28, December 30 and January 20. Another meeting was set up for July 13, again in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
The Tehran delegation was as before, namely Mohammed Jafar Sahraroudi and Hadji Moustafawi, except that this time there was also a third member : Amir Mansur Bozorgian whose function was that of bodyguard. The Kurds also had a three-man delegation : Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, his aide Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar (member of the PDKI Central Committee) and Fadhil Rassoul, an Iraqi university professor who had acted as a mediator.
The next day, 13 July 1989, in the very room where the negotiation took place Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was killed by three bullets fired at very close range. His assistant Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar was hit by eleven bullets and Fadhil Rassoul by five. Hadji Moustafawi succeeded in escaping. Mohammad Jafar Sahraroudi received minor injuries and was taken to hospital, questioned and allowed to go. Amir Mansur Bozorgian was released after 24 hours in police custody and took refuge in the Iranian Embassy.
.
The PDKÎ Deputy Secretary General, Sadegh Sharafkandi, succeeded Ghassemlou as Secretary General (he was assassinated on September 17, 1992). Abdullah Ghaderi Azar and Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou were buried on July 20 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
.
Investigation
According to the pdki.org website
In late November 1989 the Austrian courts issued a warrant for the arrest of the three Iranian representatives and the Austrian Government expressly accused the Iranian Government as having instigated the attack on Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and the two other Kurds.
The three Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian representatives in the negotiations with the Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
leaders could return to Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
as free people, one of them had never been in custody, one was escorted to the Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
airport nine days after the crime by Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n police and the third, after one night of arrest, spent a few months in the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian embassy in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
before he disappeared from Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Warrants for their arrest were not issued before November 1989. 20 years after the triple assessination they have not been executed, still. Contrary to the German Mykonos-trial after the murder of Ghassemlou's successor Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
the crime in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
was never clarified by any court. The Mykonos verdict of April 10, 1997 clearly states the responsibility of the then Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian government for the murders in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
See also
- Mahabad Republic
- Qazi MuhammadQazi MuhammadQazi Muhammad was a nationalist and religious Kurdish leader and the Head of the Republic of Kurdistan, the second modern Kurdish state in the Middle East ....
- Sadeq Sharafkandi
- Mustafa HijriMustafa HijriMustafa Hijri Mustafa Hijri Mustafa Hijri (Kurdish: Mistefa Hicrî, (born 1945) is the current General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and is based in Northern Iraq.-Political life:...
- SimkoSimko ShikakSimko Shikak also Ismail Agha Shikak ) was a Kurdish chieftain of the Shakak tribe...