Iranian regime threatens lives of exiled dissidents

The news of the death threats was first picked up by Shahrzad News and quoted within hours by more than 120 news and political websites. An Iranian resident of Berlin, where in 1995 leaders of the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party were killed in the Mykonos Restaurant, posted the following comment on his Facebook page: “We must take these threats very seriously. Iranian opposition members and exiles must be very vigilant.”

Shahrzad News: In a public threat to members of Iran’s exiled opposition, a government official said “an invisible army is hunting them down.”

Morteza Parsi, a conservative political analyst, called on Iranian citizens to join the fight by identifying dissident activists and reporting them to the regime’s intelligence-gathering units.

Parsi advises Iranian officials on foreign relations. He went on to predict that when the twelfth missing Imam of the Shias appears “he will rid the world of all war and suffering.”

Parsi’s call for the elimination of exiled opponents of the regime has caused concern among Iranian communities abroad. It would not be the first time such murders had taken place. Over sixty prominent members of the country’s exiled opposition groups have been killed by the regime’s agents in the past thirty years, among them Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under the Shah, Ferydoun Farokhzad, a popular singer and entertainer in Germany, and several top leaders of Iranian Kurdish democratic movements in Austria and Germany. Extensive investigations by western justice organisations have shown that agents of the regime were responsible.

Such killings are still fresh in the minds of Iranians and the international community. Those Iranians who left their homeland in the 1980s to seek refuge in European cities still have vivid memories of how Shapour Bakhtiar’s throat was cut with a bread knife at his own home in Paris.

The news of the death threats was first picked up by Shahrzad News and quoted within hours by more than 120 news and political websites. An Iranian resident of Berlin, where in 1995 leaders of the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party were killed in the Mykonos Restaurant, posted the following comment on his Facebook page: “We must take these threats very seriously. Iranian opposition members and exiles must be very vigilant.”

After years spent investigating the Mykonos murders, a German court found five top leaders of the Iranian regime guilty of ordering the terrorist action. It also sentenced Kazem Darabi, one of perpetrators, to life imprisonment. Freed last year after fifteen years in jail, on his return to Iran he was welcomed as a hero by officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is currently writing his prison memoirs with the aid of a government agency in Tehran.

Iranian communities in the United States feel that the greater geographical distance from Iran means exiled dissidents are relatively safe. One such immigrant, who has been involved in social and cultural activities in Washington over the past twenty years, told Shahrzad News that Iranians living in European cities are more at risk.

“Iranians in Europe should be extra careful in the light of these threats. Here in the US security measures are more stringent, making it almost impossible for the regime’s terrorists to take action against opposition activists.”

When asked by Shahrzad News whether Parsi’s threats should be taken seriously, an Iranian activist who has been living as a refugee in France for the past twenty-five years said: “We should always be vigilant. But the Iranian regime is currently engulfed in a web of tensions and infighting at home, and as such is not in a position to launch any terrorist activity. Furthermore, after 9/11 anti-terrorist security measures were heightened throughout the world. The allies of the Iranian and Syrian regimes are also in a shaky position, and for the time being are not in a position to launch terrorist attacks in foreign countries on behalf of the Iranian regime.”

In the past two years Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ahmadinejad himself have made repeated attempts to win the hearts and minds of Iranians abroad. On foreign trips Ahmadinejad throws parties for Iranian nationals who regularly visit Iranian embassies, in an effort to encourage them to maintain ties with their cultural roots and families at home. He went so far as to set up a Foreign Ministry office whose brief is to persuade members of Iranian communities abroad to invest in the country’s industrial and cultural projects. Iran’s national television channel regularly broadcasts details of the activities of those who have responded to Ahmadinejad’s initiative.

The research centre at Iran’s Majles (parliament) recently concluded that the Iranian government should invest in the large number of Iranians living abroad, inviting them to become ‘cultural ambassadors.’ It recommended that Persian language classes amongst such people should be expanded and given government support, so that new generations of Iranians living abroad have a better chance to learn about the history and culture of their country.

However it cautioned against such language and cultural centres publicising their links with the embassies, as this would deter people from approaching them.

In recent days reports about the movements and activities of certain individuals connected to the Iranian regime have been published in Germany and Norway. And British intelligence organisations have warned at least one of the many well-known opposition figures to remain vigilant about a possible terrorist threat to his life. Shahrzad News is aware of the identity of this person but is withholding it for security reasons.

Source: Shahrzad News