Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

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One Person’s Story

Ali Kashefpur

About

Age: 33
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Non-Believer
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: August 16, 1990
Location of Killing: Konya - Ankara Road, Konya, Turkey
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
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Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

Documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, the following human rights may have been violated in this case:

  • The right to liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1.

  • The right not to be punished for any crime on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time it was committed.

UDHR, Article 11.2; ICCPR, Article 15, Article 6.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.

UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1.

  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.

In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

  • The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

  • The right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.

  • The right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.

  • The right, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion.

 

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

  • The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law.

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

The right to due process

  • The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Capital punishment
  • The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

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Mr. Kashefpur was an honest, patient, kind, and sociable person and greatly valued education and the quest for knowledge.

Information regarding the extrajudicial killing of Mr. Ali Kashefpur, son of Jahangir and Nishan, was obtained through an interview conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with his brother, Mr. Karim Kashani (August 21, 2021); Yeni Konya Turkish daily newspaper (August 17, 1990); and the Human Rights Center, Konya Branch, Report (August 28, 1990). Additional information about his assassination was obtained from the book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur” (“In Remembrance of Ali Kashefpur”), (May 1997).

Mr. Kashefpur was an ethnic Kurd, married, born in 1957-58 in Orumieh’s County’s village of Piranjugh located in the Suma-ye Baradust Region in West Azarbaijan province. He studied in the village of Hursin until he finished sixth grade, and subsequently went to Orumieh and obtained a high school diploma with a concentration in literature. He was then admitted to Tabriz University in the social science program. Because of his interest in law [and political science], Mr. Kashefpur participated in the national college entrance examination again in his second year of college, and was accepted into Tehran University’s political science program. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021; the book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur” (“In Remembrance of Ali Kashefpur”), May 1997).

In the last year of his university studies, which coincided with the start of the Islamic Revolution (1978), Mr. Kashefpur participated in demonstrations and protests against the Pahlavi regime, and was beaten several times by government forces. After the Islamic Revolution, and upon beginning his political activities in Iran’s Kurdish regions, he quit school, returned to Orumieh, and started a library in the village of Hursin with a group of his friends. He then joined the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and began his political and party activities. He was an active member of the Party in the northern regions of West Azarbaijan Province. Mr. Kashefpur’s father, who had been a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan since the Pahlavi regime, influenced his political and party leanings. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

Mr. Kashefpur was elected adviser to the Party’s Central Council at the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s Fourth Congress held on March 20, 1980, in the city of Mahabad. He was severely injured in the summer of 1981, while in Orumieh County’s village of Aghsaqal, when the central government’s fighter jets conducted a bombing raid on regions under the control of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. From 1982 until 1988, Mr. Kashefpur was elected member of the Party’s Central Committee in the course of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Congresses. From 1982 until 1984, he was active in the Party’s Personnel and Peshmerga Education Section in the northern regions of West Azarbaijan Province. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021; the book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997).

After the split in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in March-April 1988, and the formation of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan-Revolutionary Leadership, he joined the latter Party and became a member of its Central Committee. (The book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997). He was the main person in charge of the County Committees for both the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan-Revolutionary Leadership, in West Azarbaijan Province. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

In January 1990, Mr. Kashefpur illegally went to Turkey and took up residence in the city of Ghunieh (Konya) for seven months in order to help his family who was in Turkey at the time and intended to migrate to Europe. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021). He did not feel safe there because several members of the Kurdish political parties had been assassinated in Turkey during that period, and because he did not trust Turkish Police (The book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997); he had also introduced himself as an Azeri speaking person. (Human Rights Center, Konya Branch, Report, August 28, 1990).

According to Mr. Kashefpur’s brother, “he was an honest, patient, kind, and sociable person and greatly valued education and the quest for knowledge, and encouraged young people around him to get an education. He strongly believed in human rights and equal rights for men and women; he was not religious and was very strongly opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime.” (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

Background on the Formation of the Kurdistan Democratic Party

Following internal conflicts within the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan – established in 1945 with the aim of autonomy for Kurdistan in northwestern Iran – the Party went through a shakeup in 2006 and was split into two separate organizations, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK). The PDK seeks “the establishment of a Kurdistan Republic within the framework of a federal Iran”. (Charter of the PDK, passed in its 16thCongress in February 2016). This party has not ruled out armed struggle; it has, however, prioritized political struggle and the expression of the people of Kurdistan’s demands through elections and other civil activities within the framework of existing domestic laws in order to achieve their goals. (The official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd, February 16, 2016).

The PDK has demanded the implementation of, and even negotiation over, Principles 15* and 19**of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic that deals with the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. In 2016-17, Party officials met with Iran’s National Security High Council officials in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. On February 15, 2016, in the Concluding Declaration of its 16thCongress, the Party emphasized “rendering the struggle and the activities more robust, both inside and outside the country, and strengthening the nationalist discourse as well as the spirit of unity and solidarity in Iranian Kurdistan in all areas and contexts” through “utilization of all means and methods of struggle for the purpose of universalizing the nationalist discourse in Iranian Kurdistan, relying on unity and solidarity”. (Boroumand Center interview, February 4, 2021; Giarang, January 3, 2019; Deutsche Welle, July 10, 2019; the official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd, February 16, 2016).

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In most cases there has not been much published, and the local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “… We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders”

At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long-term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation. *** 

Threats made against Mr. Kashefpur, and his death

Mr. Ali Kashefpur was assassinated on August 16, 1990, in Konya, Turkey; he was shot three times in the head and neck. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021; Yeni Konya newspaper, August 17, 1990; Human Rights Center, Konya Branch, Report, August 28, 1990).

According to his brother, “the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime had always wanted to assassinate him – including once through a time bomb at the radio [station] when he was active in Iranian Kurdistan – because of Mr. Kashefpur’s membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan-Revolutionary Leadership’s Central Committee, his leadership position of the Party’s County Committees, his activities in recruiting and training Peshmerga fighters, and because he was a well-known figure of the Party in the northern regions of West Azarbaijan Province and had significant influence among the people”. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

Regarding the details of how Mr. Kashefpur was kidnapped, his brother told the Boroumand Center: “The night of August 15, 1990, a phone call was made to my brother’s home, which my nephew answered, and then the call was disconnected. They called again and this time, my brother answered the phone. After about ten minutes, there was a knock on the door around midnight, and two people dressed in Turkish Police uniform, as well as another person in plainclothes, entered the home, handcuffed him, and took him away. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

After his arrest, Mr. Kashefpur’s wife contacted the city of Konya’s Political Police, which was in charge of political refugees, informed them of his arrest, and asked for their help. The Turkish Political Police stated that they had no information about the matter and told his wife that they would look into it the next day. (The book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997).

On August 16, 1990, Turkish Police found Mr. Kashefpur’s body near the [Auto] Technical Check Center on the Konya – Ankara road. His hands and feet had been tied with a rope and a wool mask had been wrapped around his head. (Yeni Konya newspaper, August 17, 1990; Human Rights Center, Konya Branch, Report, August 28, 1990).

Mr. Kashefpur’s body was buried in the city of Konya’s cemetery on August 17, 1990, with his family and a few of his friends and acquaintances in attendance. (The book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997). 

Iranian Officials’ Reaction

There is no information regarding the Iranian officials’ reaction. 

Turkish Officials’ Reaction

There is no information regarding the Turkish officials’ reaction. 

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan-Revolutionary Leadership’s Reaction

On August 19, 1990, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan-Revolutionary Leadership issued a statement [reacting] to Mr. Kashefpur’s assassination. The Party’s Secretary General sent a letter to the then-President of Turkey in December 1990, asserting that the Islamic republic of Iran’s regime was responsible for the assassination. (The book “Yadvareye Ali Kashefpur”, May 1997).

Family’s Reaction

Mr. Kashefpur’s family continued to send letters to Turkish Police for 20 years after his assassination, asking that they continue to follow up on the case and identify those responsible for his killing; Turkish police continued, however, to express their lack of knowledge and information as to the identity of the assassins. (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021). 

Impact on the Family

Regarding the impact of the assassination on himself and the rest of the family, Mr. Kashefpur’s brother told the Boroumand Center: “The killing had an extremely painful impact on me and the rest of the family. For two years after this event, I did not want to either talk or laugh, and all I could think of was ‘why had they done that to my brother, who were they?’ All Ali ever wanted to do was serve the people; why did they do that to him?” (Boroumand Center interview, August 21, 2021).

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* Principle 15 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: “The official language and script of Iran, the lingua franca of its people, is Persian. Official documents, correspondence, and texts, as well as text-books, must be in this language and script. However, the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian.”
** Principle 19 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran:” All people of Iran, whatever the ethnic group or tribe to which they belong, enjoy equal rights; and color, race, language, and the like, do not bestow any privilege.”
 ***Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left-hand highlight with the same title.

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