Ali Bazjanbazlu was a sympathizer of Rah-e Kargar or the "Revolutionary Workers’ Organization of Iran." It was established in 1979 by a group of leftist activists who rejected the idea of armed struggle. Marxist-Leninist, the group promoted a socialist revolution and the leadership of the proletariat. Unlike the pro-Soviet communist Tudeh party, Rah-e Kargar opposed the Islamic Republic and Ayatollah Khomeini's leadership.

Ali Bazjanbazlu was murdered on August 25, 1980.

Information regarding the extrajudicial killing of Mr. Alibaz Janbazlu (Haji Khan Rezai)*, son of Belqeis and Mr. Khalifeh Rezai, was obtained from an electronic form submitted to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center by a person close to him (August 11, 2022), and a letter written by Mr. Allahgholi Khan Jahangiri to Ayatollah Khomeini, available on the Gozareshgaran (“Reporters”) website (August 28, 1980).

According to available information, Mr. Alibaz Janbazlu (Rezai) was 25 years old, single, and born in the town of Mahur in Fars Province. He was born in a migrant tribe family. His family made a living raising livestock. He had seven brothers and sisters. He attended elementary school in the village of Khumezar near Nurabad Mamasani in Fars Province. He went to the town of Shahreza in 1971-72 to continue his education, and subsequently obtained a trade school diploma and began working in a construction company. According to one of his relatives, “Alibaz was a person who felt a sense of obligation toward society and to the people close to him, and liked hiking, horseback riding, trekking in nature, music, poetry, and technique”.

Mr. Janbazlu (Rezai) was an adolescent in 1973-74, when he became interested in politics. He was “a leftist and a socialist” and leaned toward the guerilla movement of the time; he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison by a military tribunal under the previous regime. “In addition to his studies, he engaged in other studies and in organizing political discussions, and discussions about hiking, with young people.” (Electronic form). After the 1979 Revolution, “the [Islamic] regime called the movement ‘the Allahgholi Jahangiri** Group’ because of its independent stance in emphasizing the people’s participation in deciding their own destiny in the form of councils; the sentences issued [for the movement] also labeled the movement ‘the Allahgholi Jahangiri grouplet”. (Electronic form).

Mr. Janbazlu (Rezai) participated in the anti-Shah protests. “Shahreza was the first city in Iran that was freed by the late Alibaz and his brothers in arm without bloodshed, with the city and its military centers falling into the people’s hands in early February 1979. After the prisons were opened and his brothers in arm were released, he became active in independently organizing the workers’ and tribes’ professional and political demands, and began his activities in the central [Iran] Provinces.” (Electronic form). Shahreza was a place for the presentation of various publications and for conducting discussions, and the city’s combatants started to establish councils. The councils’ activity revolved around “agricultural reform and elimination of landowners’ profiteering”. The city councils were attacked by [government] agents around [March] 1979. “Around early March, 1979, [they] were attacked by the agents, and Mr. Janbazlu and his brothers in arm were forced to retreat among the people in villages and tribes.” (Electronic form).

The agents’ attacks on the regions’ combatants continued; they were trying to label the leaders of the movement as lawless insurgents, and were trying to eliminate them. “The attacks continued extensively and intermittently beginning in March 1979. In September 1979, following another one of these unsuccessful attacks, the government distributed the names of 20 of the movement’s leaders in the region by helicopter, labeling them as insurgents and apostates, and the late Alibaz’ name was among them.” (Electronic form).

Mr. Janbazlu (Rezai) participated in organizing protests against Qashqai tribe’s leaders on July 28, 1980. (Allahgholi Jahangiri’s letter to Khomeini

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. ***

Mr. Janbazlu’s (Rezai) Death

According to available information, On August 24, 1980, in the course of the [towns of] Shahreza and Samirom Revolutionary Guards Corps’ attack on the village of Dizjan (a village in the Vardasht Region) at five o’clock in the morning, Mr. Janbazlu (Rezai), who was sick and in bed, was shot and killed by the Guardsmen who had surrounded him, as he was trying to flee. The bullet hit him in the heart.

The person who shot him was a Shahreza Revolutionary Guardsman at the time, who, along with three other Guardsmen, surrounded Mr. Janbazlu (Rezai), who was unarmed. “The Revolutionary Guards had been intermittently attacking the region’s villages ever since March 1979, but the late Alibaz and his brothers in arm were very alert and would often leave the region just in time. In the course of these offensives, the Revolutionary Guards would attack the Vardasht region from different sides with dozens of vehicles full of their forces, and advance village by village, and conduct “purges”, as they liked to say. It was some time during these attacks that Alibaz Janbazlu developed an illness resembling malaria. He was resting in a house where some medication was also being kept, when he was shot by a live bullet and died on the spot. The Revolutionary Guards took his body to Shahreza, however.” (Electronic form).

Mr. Janbazlu’s (Rezai) body was turned over to his family after one day. The burial took place by his family, and the people as well as the group’s members and other political organizations participated in the funeral proceedings.

Officials’ Reaction

There is no information regarding the officials’ reaction.

Family’s Reaction

After his killing, Mr. Janbazlu’s (Rezai) family took no action “because the August 24 attack had taken place on the direct orders of the then-President Abolhassan Bani Sadr, under the command and extensive participation of the Shahreza Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as local operatives who were in direct contact with the Qashqai Brothers’ camp. So there was no room to lodge a complaint. They even knew who had fired the shots”.  (Electronic form).

Impact on the Family

Mr. Janbazlu’s (Rezai) killing had an enormous impact on his family. According to a person close to him, “after the regime started a nationwide repression in 1981, it forced the people of the region to cooperate through threats of execution. For that reason, two other family members, Fegrass Rezai and Ayaz Rezai, who did not want to be on the side of their brother’s murderers, were forced to flee and both lost their lives”.

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*Mr. Haji Khan Reza’s name is Alibaz Janbazlu in official documents. The reason for this is the tribal lifestyle in the 1950’s and the farther regions’ lack of access to an official documents registration [mechanism] in order to obtain a birth certificate [or identity card]. Because Mr. Rezai had a strong interest in schooling and getting an education, he changed his birth certificate [and adopted that of] one of his relatives in the Khomehzar village, near Nurabad-e Mamsani in Fars province and registered to go to school; for that reason, his name was Alibaz Janbazlu in official documents.

**In the early 1970’s, Allahgholi Khan Jahangiri founded and led armed factions in the Qashqai tribes, fighting the Shah’s government. He was arrested and imprisoned some time later. After the 1979 Revolution, he and his brothers in arm “became active in independently organizing the workers’ and tribes’ professional and political demands, and began extensive activities in the central [Iran] provinces.” This group was the target of the Islamic Republic’s wrath from the get go. On February 13, 1984, the regime, having mobilized its forces and secured the cooperation of several individuals, found out where Mr. Jahangiri and the other leaders of the movement were staying, proceeded to surround them, and started attacking them with weapons of war on land and from the air. The fighting lasted one day. Mr. Jahangiri and his brothers in arm fought until their very last bullet was spent. He committed suicide by taking cyanide. The regime’s agents paraded his body in various cities for days.

***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.