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Press Roundup
The Chain Murders
by MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles
14 Dec 2009 20:1931 Comments
[ feature ] This feature has been updated here.
The history of political assassinations in Iran is almost as old as the nation itself: Xerxes (519-465 BC) was killed by his guards; Xerxes II ruled for only 45 days before he was murdered in 424 by his brother Secydianus; and even Nader Shah (1688-1747) of the Afsharid dynasty met his demise at the hands of an assassin. In fact, the root of the very word "assassin" is generally attributed to Hassan Sabbah (1050s-1124) and his followers, who were the political dissidents of their era, although linguists debate the origin of assassin as deriving from the words meaning "user of hashish" [as Sabbah's followers were sometimes called the Hashshashin], "a follower of Hassan," or "rowdy people."
The Qajar Dynasty
In the modern era, the first political assassination in Iran occurred on April 30, 1896, when Mirza Reza Kermani assassinated Nassereddin Shah (1831-1896) of the Qajar dynasty in Rey, a town south of Tehran. Kermani was a follower of Sayyed Jamaladdin Asadabadi (1838-1897), who was also known as "Afghani," one of the earliest proponents of Islamic modernism. The assassination and the subsequent execution of Kermani on August 12, 1896, represented a watershed moment in Iran's modern history that ultimately led to the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1908), the first democratic movement in the modern Middle East.
Kermani had said, "I could have killed him [Nassaereddin Shah] earlier, but I did not do it because [when I could] the Jews were celebrating their picnic after the 8th day of Passover, and I did not want the Jews to be accused of killing the Shah."
It was after the Constitutional Revolution that murdering intellectuals began to be used routinely as a weapon of state for silencing the opposition. Mirza Jahangir-Khan Shirazi (1875-1908), better known as Mirza Jahangir-Khan Sur-e Esrafil, a journalist, intellectual, revolutionary, and founder and editor of the progressive weekly Sur-e Esrāfil, was executed after Mohammad-Ali Shah Qajar's coup against the Constitutionalists. Mohammad-Ali Shah hated Sur-e Esrafil so much that he personally attended his hanging. It is said that right before his execution, Sur-e Esrafi said, "Long live the Constitutional government!" and that he pointed to the ground and said, "O Land, we are [being] murdered for the sake of your preservation."
Executed along with Sur-e Esrafil was fellow revolutionary Mirza Nasrollah Beheshti, known as Malek al-Motakallemin (1860-1908), an intellectual who was so impressed by the Japanese model of progress that he advocated a more rational use of natural resources for industrialization of Iran. Author and literary critic Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1853-1908) was beheaded on the order of Mohammad Ali Shah.
Sheikh Mohammad Khiabani (1880-1920) was also killed in the twilight years of the Qajar dynasty. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiabani, who was a leftist revolutionary and had re-established the Democrat Party of Tabriz (it had been banned for five years), published the daily Tajaddod ("Modernity") as the mouthpiece of his political party. He was killed by government forces, although it was claimed that he had committed suicide.
The Pahlavi Dynasty
Political killings of intellectuals and dissidents persisted under the Pahlavi dynasty. The British-sponsored coup of 1921 made Reza Khan Sardar Sepah (1878-1944) Iran's strongman. He later founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925 and was crowned as Reza Shah. He suppressed progressive movements in various parts of Iran, and killed their leaders, some of whom were intellectuals: Haydar Amu-Oghlu, a leftist intellectual revolutionary, was killed in 1921 and Col. Mohammad Taghi Khan Pesyan, a military man and author, in 1921. The latter was trained as a pilot in the German Air Force and fought in WWI. He translated many works from Persian to French, French to Persian, as well as from German and English to Persian as well. He authored two books in Persian, Sargozasht-e yek javan-e vatandoust ("The Life of a Young Patriot") and Jang-e moqaddas az Baghdad ta Iran ("The Holy War from Baghdad to Iran"). He was beheaded on the order of Iran's premier Ahmad Qavam (1876-1955) and his minister of war, Reza Khan.
Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi (1887-1939), the great poet and journalist who had been jailed in 1909 (during the reign of the Qajar dynasty), died in Reza Shah's prison. While in Reza Shah's jail, his lips were sewn together to make an example of the fate that awaited dissidents. Sayyed Mohammad Reza Kordestani, known as Mohammad Reza Mirzadeh Eshghi (1893-1924), an eminent political poet, was assassinated by the security forces of Reza Khan Sardar Sepah, who was then prime minister. Sayyed Hassan Modarres (1870-1937), the cleric founder of one of the first reformist political parties in Iran, Hezb Eslaahtalab (Reformist Party), and was called "brave and incorruptible," and "perhaps the most fervent cleric supporter of true constitutional government," was also killed in Reza Shah's prison. It is interesting to note that Modarres was opposed to Reza Shah's plans for abolishing monarchy in Iran, and wanted him to be a benevolent king. Dr. Taghi Arani (1905-1940), a distinguished leftist intellectual, died in captivity under Reza Shah, after he was deliberately infected by typhus.
Ali Akbar Davar (1888-1937), one of Reza Shah's most faithful servants and the architect of Iran's modern judiciary, committed suicide because he thought that Reza Shah was going to murder him. Mohsen Jansouz (1915-1940), a political activist who was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and had translated his book into Persian, but opposed Pahlavi rule, was killed on the king's order.
Other intellectuals and dissidents either went into exile or fell completely silent, including Abolqassem Aref Ghazvini (1879-1934), a national poet who died in forced exile in Hamadan; Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh (1882-1967); Soleiman Mirza Eskandari (1863-1944), a leftist intellectual and a founding member of the communist Tudeh (masses) Party; and Mohammad Ali Foroughi (1877-1943), who in 1907 had became director of Tehran School of Political Science and was instrumental in the rise of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne, later serving as the first prime minister during his reign.
After the Allied forces invaded and occupied Iran, deposed Reza Shah, and put his son Mohammad Reza on the throne, political assassinations of intellectuals, dissidents and government officials continued. Ahmad Kasravi (1890-1946), the distinguished historian who fought against Shiism and even introduced a new religion with himself as the prophet, was killed by Islamic zealots. On March 11, 1946, while on trial for "slander against Islam," Kasravi was attacked by a knife-wielding follower of Navab Safavi (1924-1955), the Shiite fundamentalist cleric who founded Fadayan Islam (Devotees of Islam).
Fadayan Islam also assassinated members of the Shah's government. First, they assassinated Abdolhosein Hazhir (1899-1949), who served as a minister ten times. He was serving as Minister to the Royal Court when he was assassinated on November 5, 1949, by Sayyed Hossein Emami Esfahani, a member of Navab Safavi's organization. General Haj Ali Razmara (1901-1951), the Shah's premier, was assassinated by 26-year-old Khalil Tahmasebi of Fadayan Islam. He was the first Iranian prime minister to be assassinated.
The Shah himself was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt. He was attending a ceremony on February 4, 1949, to celebrate the founding of Tehran University when Nasser Fakhr Arai fired five shots at him, but only one of them hit the Shah. Fakhr Arai himself was killed by security officers. Although it was claimed that Fakhr Arai was a member of the Tudeh Party (a then-illegal Communist party), there is evidence that he may have been a religious fundamentalist. This evidence is set forth by Stephen Kinzer, a former reporter for The New York Times, in his outstanding 2003 book, "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror." In his memoirs right before his death, the Shah himself stated that Fakhr Arai was a fundamentalist (he also claimed that Fakhr Arai was a British agent). Eventually Fadayan Islam turned against Dr. Mosaddegh as well.
After the CIA/MI6 coup of 1953, Dr. Hossein Fatemi (1919-1954), a prominent journalist who served as foreign minister in Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh's cabinet, was carried on a stretcher to the firing squad. Karim Pourshirazi, editor of the daily Shouresh ("Uprising"), and a fiery critic of the Shah and his twin sister Ashraf, was burnt alive in a military prison after undergoing severe torture.
Khosro Ruzbeh (1915-1958), who was executed by the Shah's government, was the chief of the military branch of the Tudeh Party, as well as the author of a number of pamphlets on chess, artillery warfare, and, together with Ardeshir Ovanessian, the co-author of the country's first political lexicon, Dictionary of Political and Social Terms.
Journalist Khosro Golsorkhi (1944-1974); Keramatollah Daneshian, a filmmaker and teacher (1944-1974); leftist intellectual Bijan Jazani (1938-1975); author Hamid Momeni (who published under the pseudonym M. Bidsorkhi), and dozens of other intellectuals were all murdered simply because they opposed the Pahlavi regime. Hundreds of secular and Islamic leftists were killed by the Shah's security forces in the 1960s and 1970s.
For an excellent account of the history and fate of many Iranian intellectuals, read "The Condition of Intellectuals in Iran," an article by Bagher Momeni.
Murder of Dissidents in the Islamic Republic
In terms of politically-motivated killing of dissidents, intellectuals and opposition members, 1980-1998 represents the darkest and bloodiest period in the last 150 years of Iran's history. Thousands of political prisoners were executed in that decade, as I described in an earlier article (and will therefore not discuss again here).
The focus of this article is the period 1988-1998, during which dozens of prominent dissidents and intellectuals were secretly or openly murdered. The full extent of these murders is still unknown. Not only do we not know the exact number of people murdered, we do not really know who ordered them, as the killings are still shrouded in secrecy.
It was only during the fall of 1998, during the second year of the first term of Mohammad Khatami's presidency that the serial murders of dissidents and intellectuals of the preceding decade came to light. This was made possible by the "Tehran Spring" (named after the "Prague Spring") of 1998-2000, a brief period when the Iranian press enjoyed relative freedom and began publishing exposes on these events.
In 1998, between late summer and fall, six dissidents and intellectuals were murdered in what came to be known as the "Chain Murders" [ghatl-haye zanjireh-i]. Iranians soon learned, however, that the number of people killed far exceeded that number.
The assassination of members of the opposition outside Iran began as early as December 1979, when Shahryar Shafiq (1945-1979), the son of Ashraf Pahlavi, the Shah's twin sister, was gunned down in a street in Paris.
In July 1980, Ali Tabatabaei (1930-1980) was murdered at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, by Dawud Salahuddin, an American who was sympathetic to the 1979 Revolution. Tabatabaei was the press attache in Iran's embassy in the United States under the Shah, and had joined the opposition after the 1979 Revolution. Salahuddin was paid $5,000 to kill Tabatabaei, and currently lives in Iran.
On February 7,1984, General Gholam-Ali Oveissi (1920-1984), a hard-line army commander and military governor of Tehran under the Shah, and his brother Gholam-Hossein, were assassinated in Paris.
On January 16, 1987, Ali Akbar Mohammadi, who was a former pilot for Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was assassinated by two men in Hamburg, Germany.
On May 19, 1987, Hamidreza Chitgar (1949-1987), who was First Secretary of Hezb Kaar (Labor Party), was assassinated in an apartment in Vienna, Austria. His body was discovered a week later. It was said that a man named Ali Amiztab had corresponded with Chitgar from Iran for about two years and had lured him from Paris, where he lived, to Vienna.
In 1989, Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) since 1973, had gone to Vienna, Austria, to negotiate with representatives of the Iranian government. On July 13, he and his aides Abdollah Ghaderi, Fadal Mala and Mamoud Rassoul, met with Iranian representatives Mohammad Jafari Sahraroudi, Amir Bozorgnia and Kurdistan provincial governor Mostafa Ajoudi. Shots were fired at the apartment where the meeting took place, killing Ghassemlou and his aides. The shooting was reported to the police by the Iranian delegation who, however, denied any responsibility. The Austrian police, after taking statements, released the Iranian representatives, but concluded later that they were probably the culprits. By then, however, the Iranian delegation had been expelled from Austria.
In August 1989, Gholam Keshavarz, a communist and opponent of the Islamic Republic, was assassinated in Cyprus by unknown assailants.
Dr. Kazem Rajavi (1934-1990), the elder brother of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO), was assassinated on April 24, 1990, in a village near Geneva in Switzerland. He was Iran's first Ambassador to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva after the 1979 Revolution, but resigned his post and was active in the MKO's political arm, the National Council of Resistance.
In July 1990, Ali Kashefpour, a member of the Central Committee of the KDPI, was killed in Turkey. He had apparently been kidnapped and severely tortured. The case remains unsolved.
In September 1990, Effat Qazi, who was a daughter of Gazi Mohammed, the Kurdish leader and President of the Mahabad Republic [a breakaway republic formed in 1946-47 and soon crushed by government forces], was killed in Sweden. A letter bomb that had been intended for her husband, Amir Qazi, a Kurdish activist, went off and killed her instead.
In October 1990, Cyrus Elahi, who was a member of the opposition monarchist group Derafsh-e Kaviani (Flag of Freedom), was assassinated at his home in Paris.
In April 1991, Abdolrahman Boroumand was stabbed to death in a street in Paris. He was a member of the executive committee of the National Resistance Movement of Iran that Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar (1915-1991), the last Prime Minister under the Shah, had founded in France.
Bakhtiar himself was assassinated a short time later, on August 7, 1991. He had already escaped an assassination attempt at his home in Paris in July 1980, which killed a policeman and a neighbor. Stabbed to death along with Bakhtiar was his secretary, Soroush Katibeh. Three assassins were involved in the murders: two of them, Nasser Ghasemi Nejad and Gholam Hossein Shoorideh Shirazi, fled to Iran; but the third, Ali Vakili Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland, extradited to France, and after a trial was sentenced in December 1994 to life in prison. He remains in jail.
In September 1991, Saeed Yazdanpanah, a member of the Revolutionary Union of Kurdish People, was stabbed to death in his home in Iraq along with his secretary Cyrus Katibeh.
In August 1992, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a popular Iranian singer, was killed at his home in Bonn, Germany. He had been beheaded, and his tongue had been cut off.
On September 17, 1992, Dr. Sadeq Sharafkandi, leader of the KDPI, and three Kurdish aides, Homayoun Ardalan, Fattah Abdollahi, and Nouri Dehkordi, were assassinated in the Greek restaurant "Mykonos" in Berlin, Germany. The affair is, therefore, known as the "Mykonos Incident." In April 1997, a German court found Kazem Darabi, an Iranian who worked as a grocer in Berlin, and a Lebanese citizen, Abbas Rhayel, guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. As part of its ruling, the court issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, then Iran's Minister of Intelligence. The court also held that the assassination had been ordered by Fallahian with knowledge of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Darabi and Rhayel were deported to their home countries in December 2007.
In March 1993, two chiefs of the Narou'i tribe of Baluchistan province, Heybatollah Narou'i and Delaviz Narou'i, were shot dead outside their home in Karachi, Pakistan. On August 25, 1993, Mohammad Ghaderi, a former member of the KDPI, was abducted from his house in Kirshahir, Turkey. About ten days later, his mutilated body was discovered. Three days later, Bahram Azadifar, another member of the KDPI, was killed in his house in Ankara, by two men disguised as Turkish policemen.
In May 1996, Reza Mazlouman (also known as Kourosh Aryamanesh), who taught criminology at the University of Tehran before the 1979 Revolution and was Deputy Minister of Education under the Shah, was shot dead in his own apartment in Paris. He was active in the opposition. A friend opened the door to the assassin, who was known to Mazlouman and had declared himself as an opponent of the Islamic Republic.
Those named above are dissidents and opposition figures who were assassinated outside of Iran. In all likelihood, Dr. Kazem Sami Kermani (1934-1988) was the first victim of the Chain Murders in Iran. He was an Islamic nationalist and physician who had founded, before the revolution, Jonbesh-e Enghelabi Mardom Iran [Revolutionary Movement of the Iranian People], known by its Persian acronym JAMA, and was active against the Shah. Right after the revolution, Dr. Sami became Minister of Health in the provisional government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan. After the American Embassy seized by leftist students on November 4, 1979, and Bazargan resigned, Dr. Sami also left the government. But he remained active in politics and was elected to the 1st Majles [Parliament], where he openly and frequently criticized the Islamic Republic.
On May 24, 1982, Iranian armed forces liberated Khorramshahr, Iran's most important port on the Persian Gulf, which had been occupied by Iraqi forces since the initial days of the war. While the nation had expected a ceasefire, the war raged on. The continuation of war was strongly protested by the Nationalist-Religious Frontand other groups, including the Freedom Movement of Bazargan and JAMA. Dr. Sami wrote an open letter to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran's Supreme Leader, in which he strongly criticized him for not ending the war. Perhaps the letter sealed his fate.
On November 23, 1988, Dr. Sami was attacked in his medical clinic in Tehran. The assailant, posing as a patient, used an ax to strike Dr. Sami in the head, chest and arms. His murder kicked off a string of killings of other intellectuals and dissidents in Iran. A man who claimed to have been the murderer supposedly committed suicide in a public bath in Ahvaz (in the southern province of Khuzestan), after which the case was declared closed.
Sayyed Khosro Besharati was a religious intellectual who was critical of certain beliefs in Shiism. He was summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence in the fall of 1990 for questioning, but was never heard from again. His dead body was found on a rural road with a bullet in the head.
On June 24, 1994, Father Mehdi Dibadj (1935-1994), a Muslim who had converted to Christianity before the 1979 Revolution, was abducted. In December 1993 he had been condemned by a court to death on a charge of apostasy. After much international criticism, he was released from prison. His body was found in northern Iran on July 5, 1994.
Father T. Mikaeilian, who disappeared in early 1994, appears to have been another victim of the Chain Murders. In July of that year, a bomb exploded in the Shrine of Imam Reza [the 8th Shia Imam] in the holy city of Mashhad. Three female members of the MKO were arrested. In a nationally televised program, the three "confessed" that they had slain Father Mikaeilian and put his body in a freezer. It is hard, however, to believe the confession. Why would the MKO want to murder a Christian priest?
Another priest, Father Husepian Mehr, was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in August 1994 in Karaj, a town west of Tehran.
In 1994, 134 writers published an open letter on October 15 in Tehran entitled, "We Are the Writers!" They demanded that censorship be abolished and called for the establishment of an autonomous writers association.
The hardliners' reaction was immediate and angry. In an article entitled "We Are the Dead!" in their mouthpiece, the daily Kayhan, Hassan Khorasani lashed out at the authors as "the excrement of the monarchical period who have always been the source of moral and intellectual corruption, and whose circles are not different from a fly's nest." Many of those who had signed the letter all died under mysterious circumstances.
Dr. Shamseddin Amir-Alaei, a nationalist figure and opposition member, died in a car accident in Tehran on August 11, 1994. It was widely believed that the accident was intentional, and that he was in fact murdered.
Zohreh Izadi, a political activist, was murdered in Tehran in May 1994. Originally from Abadan (in southern Iran), she was a medical student at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, who had apparently fallen to her death from a building.
The best-known victim was Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani (1931-1994), the distinguished writer, poet and journalist, and one of the signatories of the open letter. He supported the 1979 Revolution, but then turned against it and used satire to criticize the political establishment. When his book of essays, stories, and parables called "You of Shortened Sleeves," was published in 1989, it sold out in days. That worried the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which consequently banned not only the second printing of the book, but all books by Saidi Sirjani. He wrote a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanding that the second printing of his book be allowed. But Khamenei told Sirjani (through emissaries) to stop writing and protesting. He refused and directly attacked the Islamic Republic in an open letter. He was then arrested on March 14, 1994. After eight months in custody, it was announced that he had died of a heart attack. It is, however, widely believed that he was murdered by Saeed Emami, the notorious agent of the Ministry of Intelligence. Emad Baghi, the distinguished investigative journalist and human rights advocate revealed that a potassium suppository had been inserted into Saidi Sirjani's rectum, which quickly triggered the heart attack.
Even the family of the revolution's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, did not escape the Chain Murders unscathed. Ahmad Khomeini (1945-1995), the Ayatollah's younger son and the link between him and the political establishment, died of an apparent heart attack on March 17, 1995, a month after giving a speech in which he strongly criticized regime hardliners. It is said that Saeed Emami, the notorious agent of the Ministry of Intelligence, had killed him by cyanide poisoning because he considered him a liability for the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Niazi, the military prosecutor who handled Saeed Emami's case in 1999, reportedly told Hassan Khomeini, Ahmad's son, that Emami had killed his father.
Dr. Abdolaziz Bajd, a professor at Zahedan University (in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan), delivered a speech critical of the TV series "Imam Ali" in 1995. He was kidnapped and his body was found in the desert outside Zahedan sometime later.
Fakhrossadat Borghei (1964-1995) was a high school teacher in the city of Qom. She had a religious education, and had achieved the Ejtehad (Islamic scholar) level, which is very rare for a woman. She was strangled to death, and her dead body was found burnt.
Hossein Barazandeh (1943-1995), an engineer and a close aide of Dr. Ali Shariati [the distinguished sociologist and Islamic scholar] was another victim. In the evening of January 3, 1995, he left a Quran recitation session in Mashhad [in northeastern Iran] to go home, but never arrived there. His body was found the next morning. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Ahmad Mir Alaei (1942-1995), a writer, translator, intellectual, and signatory of the writers' open letter, died in Isfahan under mysterious circumstances. He had left home on October 24, 1995, at 7:45 am, to meet someone at a bookstore, but never arrived there. Later that day he was to give a speech at the medical school in Isfahan. Mysteriously, someone had announced to the students that the 2:00 pm lecture had been canceled. His dead body was found at 8:00 that night. The cause of death: cardiac arrest.
"Cardiac arrest" kept claiming other victims. In the winter of 1996, Dr. Ghaffar Husseini (1935-1996), a poet, translator, and theater critic, was found dead at his home. He had not appeared in public for several days. He had told some friends that at one point he had been taken to a room in a hotel in Tehran and threatened. Again, he had apparently died as the result of a cardiac arrest.
Ahmad Moftizadeh (1934-1993) was a Sunni scholar and activist in Kurdistan province. Molla Farough Farsad was a Sunni cleric in Sanandaj (capital of Kurdistan province) and a follower of Moftizadeh, who was active in politics. He was exiled to Ardabil in 1989. On February 16, 1995, his body was found in Ardabil. He had been tortured.
In October 1995, Father Mohammad Bagher Yusefi was found dead in a jungle near Sari, a city in northern Iran. He had been hanged. Again, the circumstances surrounding his death were totally mysterious.
In August of 1996, 21 writers decided to participate in a conference on literature in Armenia. They decided to take a bus and travel together from Tehran to Armenia. On August 8, 1996, the driver of the bus attempted to drive it off the Astara-Ardabil road (in northwestern Iran), in the Hayrun Pass, and into the ravine. He jumped out of the bus to escape, but several alert passengers quickly took control of the bus and veered it off its deadly path. The driver turned out to be none other than Khosrow Barati, who played an important role in the Chain Murders in the fall 1998, and actually confessed to his role in the bus incident. I will come back to this shortly.
Zahra Eftekhari, a political prisoner in the early years after the 1979 Revolution, was abducted in the city of Mashhad and murdered in December 1996. Several other former political prisoners from that era met the same fate in Mashhad. Javad Saffar and Jalal Mobinzadeh were also abducted in Mashhad and apparently murdered on the same day, January 1, 1996. Morteza Olian Najafabadi, who was a political prisoner between 1985 and 1993, was also murdered in Mashhad on January 19, 1997. Another former political prisoner, Abbas Navaei, was also murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Other former political prisoners who were murdered in 1996 included Amir Ghafouri and his brother-in-law Sayyed Mahmoud Milani. Sayyed Mahmoud Maydani, a political prisoner from 1981-1991, was abducted on April 12, 1997, in Mashhad and murdered. Three years earlier, another former political prisoner, Dr. T. Tafti, his wife and their two children were murdered in Tehran in 1993.
Novelist Ghazaleh Alizadeh was strangled to death on May 11, 1996, at her home in northern Iran. The official cause of death was suicide, but many believe that she was murdered because of her militant style of writing.
Abdolaziz Kazemi, a Ph.D. student, a lecturer at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan, and a Sunni cleric, was abducted on November 5, 1996, as he was leaving his office in the evening. Two days later, his bullet-ridden body was found on a road near the city of Zahedan (the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province). He was a political activist who advocated respect for the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Iran.
In the same year, other Sunni clerics were also assassinated, some in Iran and others in Pakistan. They included Molavi Abdul-Malek Mollahzadeh, who was gunned down along with an aide outside his Karachi home on March 4, 1996; Molavi Jamshid Zehi who was killed around the same time, and Dr. Ahmad Sayyad, whose mutilated body was found on the outskirts of Bandar Abbas (a major port on the Strait of Hormuz) on February 2, 1996. His family claimed he had been abducted at the Bandar Abbas airport, when he returned from a trip to Dubai. Mollahzadeh had been imprisoned for sometime before going to Pakistan.
On November 30, 1996, Molla Mohammad Rabiei (also known as Mamousta Rabiei) who was the Friday Prayer leader of the Sunnis of Kermanshah [in western Iran], was murdered. Officially, he had died of a heart attack. But it turned out years later that he had been killed through injection of an air bubble that had caused the heart attack.
Siamak Sanjari (1968-1996) was murdered on his wedding night in November 1996. It was said that he was well-informed about some of the crimes that former Minister of Intelligence Ali Fallahian had allegedly committed.
Dr. Ahmad Tafazzoli (1937-1997) was a prominent scholar of ancient Iranian literature, language and culture, and a faculty member at Tehran University. On January 15, 1997, Dr. Tafazzoli was found dead in a suburb northwest of Tehran. He was known to have contacts with many Iranian academics working abroad.
Hossein Sarshar was an opera singer and actor who was supposedly close to Saidi Sirjani. He was reportedly tortured and then declared dead in a fake car accident on February 14, 1997.
A couple, Manouchehr Sanei and his wife Firouzeh Kalantari, appear to have been the next victims on the chain. Sanei was a history scholar. He and his wife had returned to Iran in 1995 after living abroad for many years. They went missing on February 17, 1997. Their bodies were found on February 22 in eastern Tehran and identified a month later. The coroner's office announced that they had been stabbed to death on February 19, but that Sanei had died of a heart attack before being stabbed. Kalantari had died due to head injuries. Before his death, Sanei had been summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence several times and threatened.
On the 24th of the same month, Ebrahim Zalzadeh, editor of the monthly literary magazine, Me'yaar (criterion), and owner of Ebtekar publishing house, was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and taken to a "safe house." His family was ordered not to reveal his arrest, or that he would be killed. On March 29, 1997, his body was found half buried outside Tehran.
On December 25, 1997, Mrs. Fatemeh Ghaem-Maghami, an airline stewardess, was murdered with a single bullet. Shortly before her death she had been talking to Saeed Emami. It was revealed later that she had been forced to have a relation with Ali Fallahian, and that she had much information about the activities of both men.
On September 22, 1998, the dead body of Hamid Hajizadeh, who was a poet, scholar, and high school teacher, was found in a bed at his home in Kerman [in south central Iran]. He had been stabbed 38 times. The murderer(s) did not have mercy even on his 9-year-old son Karoon, who had also been killed while sleeping in his father's arms.
Even if their murders were not politically motivated, the circumstances surrounding their deaths were so mysterious that they gave rise to a strong suspicion that they were. Even so, most of these murders would not have come to light but for the Chain Murders in the fall of 1998. The event that may have triggered them was an angry speech on September 15, 1998, by Ayatollah Khamenei, in which he called on the judiciary to chastise newspapers and other publications that "abuse" freedom. The next day, a revolutionary court shut down the popular reformist daily Tous, and issued arrest warrants for its editor, Mahmoud Shamsolva'ezin; the publishing manager, Hamidreza Jala'ipour; leading columnist and satirist Ebrahim Nabavi; and journalist Mohammad Sadeq Javadi-Hesar. They were to be tried as "enemies of God."
These actions worried the writers, who began to organize an association. A provisional committee of 6 began the efforts to plan the first general assembly of the Iranian Writers Association. The committee consisted of Mohammad Mokhtari, Mohammad Ja'far Pouyandeh, Hooshang Golshiri, Ali Ashraf Darvishian, Kazem Kordavani, and Mansour Koushan. But, they were summoned to Tehran's Public Prosecutor's office in October 1998 and interrogated about the Association's activities. They were released only after they signed a letter promising that they would not organize the general assembly of the Association.
The first shocking news arrived in the evening of Sunday, November 22, 1998. IRNA, the official news agency, reported, and the 9:00 pm news program of the channel 1 of the national television repeated the news, that Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh Majd Eskandari, had been murdered by unidentified assailants at their home on Hedayat Street in central Tehran the night before. They had been stabbed to death, Forouhar by 26 times, his wife 25 times.
Forouhar (1928-1998) had already been abducted once by the security agents on August 12, 1994, after he had attended the funeral of Dr. Shamseddin Amir-Alaei (see above), but had been released. He was the leader of Mellat (Nation) Party since 1951, a small party that was part of the National Front, the political group of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh. He served as the Minister of Labor in the government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan immediately after the 1979 Revolution, and had spent 54 years of his life engaged with political activities. He was detained by the Shah's government several times.
Parvaneh Majd Eskandari (1938-1998) became a member of the Mellat Party when she was a student at the University of Tehran in the 1950s and, together with her future husband, was active in the anti-Shah struggle. Before her death, she had told Human Right Watch in New York that, "We are living with the fear of being killed. Every night when we go to bed we thank God the Almighty for His blessing of living another day."
The next piece of shocking news on these murders came on November 25, 1998. On that day, the body of Dr. Majid Sharif (1950-1998), a writer and translator, was identified at a Tehran morgue. He had disappeared a few days earlier, in the early morning of November 19, when he left the house for a jog. He was an only child of a religious and clerical family, a great grandson of Ayatollah Habib Sharif Kashani. After obtaining his B.S. degree in mathematics from Aryamehr University (now called Sharif University), he moved to California and received an M.S. in physics, and later a Ph.D. in sociology.
I had the honor of knowing him, having been introduced to him through a mutual friend in the spring of 1978. We had several lively discussions regarding the thinking of Dr. Ali Shariati, and Ayatollah Khomeini's criticisms of him before the 1979 Revolution. He had returned to Iran in November 1995. The coroner's office declared that he had died of a cardiac arrest, but it turned out that it had been induced, as Saidi Sirjani's had been.
In the evening of December 3, 1998, Mohammad Mokhtari (1942-1998) -- writer, mythologist, journalist and a member of the organizing committee of the Iranian Writers Association -- left his home in northern Tehran to do some shopping, but never returned. His body turned up in Ray, a town on the southern edge of Tehran, on December 9. He had been strangled. His son, Siavash, identified his father's body at the morgue.
In the evening of the same day, writer and translator Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh went missing as well. His body was found in the Shahriar district of Karaj, west of Tehran, and was identified by his family at the morgue in Tehran on December 11, 1998. He too had been strangled.
The string of five murders helped solve some of the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of another writer and political activist. On August 29, 1998, Pirouz Davani (1961-1998), a leftist and an ex-political prisoner, went missing. His body has never been recovered. Davani supported the 1979 Revolution against the Shah, but was arrested in 1981 for his alleged links to the communist opposition and imprisoned for seven months. Following the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, Davani began a campaign against the government. He was arrested again in the winter of 1991 and spent six months of his four-year-sentence in solitary confinement. He was released in 1995. After Khatami's election in May 1997, Davani founded a cultural institute to publish and promote new interpretations on the left's struggle for democracy in Iran, which led to the establishment of the Organisation of Unity for Democracy in Iran. He was also the editor and publisher of the newspaper Pirooz.
During the entire time that these murders were taking place, Ayatollah Khamenei insisted that Iran's enemies, and in particular Israel, had a hand in them. But on December 20, 1998, a statement was issued in Tehran by a shadowy and unknown group calling itself Fadayaan-e Islam-e Naab-e Mohammadi-ye Mostafa Navvab [pure Mohammadan Islam devotees of Mostafa Navvab] claiming responsibility for the killings. The statement said in part, "The revolutionary execution of Dariush Forouhar, Parvaneh Eskandari, Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh is a warning to all mercenary writers and their counter-value supporters who cherish the idea of spreading corruption and promiscuity in the country and bringing back foreign domination over Iran."
People were wondering who would be murdered next.
President Khatami formed a committee of three to investigate the murders. Members of the committee were Ali Yunesi, head of the armed forces judiciary organization; Ali Rabiei, an aide to the president with extensive connections to the intelligence community and editor of the daily Kaar va Kargar [labor and worker]; and Ali Sarmadi, deputy Minister of Intelligence.
The next shock came on January 4, 1999, when the Ministry of Intelligence issued a brief statement, admitting its own agents had committed the crimes. It said,
The despicable and abhorring recent murders in Tehran are a sign of a chronic conspiracy and a threat to the national security. Based on its legal obligations and following clear directives issued by the Supreme Leader and the President, the Intelligence Ministry set as a priority discovering and uprooting this sinister and threatening event. With the cooperation of the specially-appointed investigatory committee of the President, the Ministry has succeeded in identifying the group responsible for the killings, has made arrests and referred their cases to the judiciary. Unfortunately, a small number of irresponsible, misguided, headstrong and obstinate staff within the Ministry of Intelligence, who are no doubt under the influence of rogue undercover agents and acting towards the objectives of foreign and estranged sources when committing these criminal acts.
This was the first time in Iran's modern history that the security establishment had taken responsibility for the crimes that it had committed. In the aftermath of the statement, Khatami made it clear to the Minister of Intelligence, the cleric Ghorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi, that he could either resign or would be fired. He was never Khatami's first choice for the position. It was said at that time that Dorri Najafabadi had been imposed on Khatami by Ayatollah Khamenei. In February 1999 Dorri Najafabadi resigned. His successor was Ali Yunesi, who, in my opinion, has been, relatively speaking, the best Minister of Intelligence over the past three decades.
The ring leader of this gang was Saeed Eslami, known as Saeed Emami. Other key figures in the ring included Mostafa Kazemi (Hashemi), Mehrdad Alikhani and Khosrow Barati (the driver who tried to kill the 21 writers by driving the bus off the cliff in northern Iran). At least 11 others were also involved.
Emami was apparently of Jewish origin. He was born in 1969, and moved to the United States in 1978 with the help of his uncle, Soltan Mohammad Etemad, who was the military attaché at Iran's Embassy in Washington. After completing his higher education, he worked at Iran's interest section in the U.S. for one year and at Iran's mission to the United Nations for another year. He was then recruited by security agents. When he returned to Iran, he began working for the newly-established Ministry of Intelligence. At that time Mohammad Mohammadi Rayshahri was the Minister of Intelligence. His deputy, Saeed Hajjarian, was opposed to appointing Emami to sensitive positions at the Ministry, due to his family record.
After Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected the president in 1989, he appointed Ali Fallahian as the new Minister of Intelligence, and he appointed Emami as his deputy for security affairs. Hajjarian had already left the Ministry in 1988.
On June 20, 1999, it was announced that Saeed Emami had died in prison the night before. It was claimed that Emami had attempted to commit suicide by drinking a depilatory compound in the bathroom on June 16, 1999. He had been taken to a hospital and had undergone treatment, but had died on June 19. It was claimed that he died of a cardiac arrest and because he suffered from respiratory problems. His family held a memorial service for him in which 400 people participated.
Among those present at the memorial was the cleric Ruhollah Hosseinian, who had worked for the Intelligence Ministry [he is currently a Majles deputy]. He had claimed immediately after the revelations about the Chain Murders in January 1999 that Emami was innocent and that the crimes had been committed by the reformists around Khatami. He famously said, "We have been a murderer ourselves! Murder of dissidents is not carried out the way that it has been described!"
Investigative journalists Akbar Gangi and Emad Baghi, as well as many others, believed that the orders for the killings had come from the "above," meaning from at least the Intelligence Ministers themselves. Gangi and Baghi shed much light on the earlier killings, from 1988-1998, as listed above. Their reporting revealed that most, if not all, were probably part of a systematic program for eliminating dissidents and intellectuals opposed to repression in the Islamic Republic. Both were jailed for their excellent investigative journalism.
Dr. Nasser Zarafshan, a lawyer who represented the families of some of the slain dissidents, said in 2001 that, "Fallahian, who for years was the direct superior of Saeed Emami and, therefore, has had direct supervision over his work, says that, 'I will give no explanation without my superior being present.' Thus, to avoid the circle of investigations to encompass him, he attaches himself to others. Therefore, people themselves guess what is wrong with the case. The problem is not to which faction the perpetrators of the murders belong, but to which faction the issuer of the fatwa [Islamic order for the assassinations] belongs."
In 2000, Mohammad Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the former president who at that time was Secretary General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (the largest reformist group in Iran), referring to the hardliners' estimation that dissent can be eliminated by murdering the dissidents, warned that, "the cancer tumor is still alive and could reemerge at any moment." Events in the wake of the country's rigged June 12 presidential election seen to have proven Khatami's statement prophetic.
Copyright © 2009 Tehran Bureau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fadayan-e_Islam
Anonymous / December 15, 2009 12:22 AM
Referring to most assassination that happened during the time of Shah, I think it is also interesting to read the start of Fadieeyan Eslam and how they continued in Iran as well. This deserves a separate story and article though!:
Anything to say, Pirouz?
Amir / December 15, 2009 2:00 AM
Being half-American (mother's side), I can tell you that if someone were to write an essay about targeted political assassinations of the US during roughly the same time period (since late 19th century), the US numbers would be far greater (particularly in the west and south), and the number of heads of state assassinated in the US would be greater. Furthermore, such an essay would be considered by many Americans to be un-American immediately post Dec. 7th, 1941 or post 9/11, that is to say under conditions of threat by a foreign entity.
Something to consider, Dr. Sahimi.
Pirouz / December 15, 2009 2:08 AM
To my best knowledge the meaning of the world 'hashish'(Arabic) is 'dried herb', 'drug', 'dope' or 'medicine'. The term 'Hashasheen' which means medicine makers or pharmacists was adopted by Hassan and followers and was later used by the ruling government (The Arab invaders who forced Islam upon Persian and every other nation they savagely invaded stretching to China from the East, to Egypt from the South and to Spain from the West. It was too cold for them to go North I guess.) to discredit Hassan's freedom movement in the public view, labeling them as drug addicts.
Hassan's main source of income was producing the very best medicine and exporting it throughout Iran as well as other countries. As a matter of fact they established the first 100% free hospital in the world which treated patients from the neighbouring countries as well as those from Iran.
The word 'assassin' is certainly derived from 'Hashasheen' and the relationship between the two is due to the fact that Hassan and followers established the first assassination organization in order to take out as many heads of state as possible in an effort to rid the nation of imposed Islamic tyranny.
I believe they would have achieved their goal had it not coincided with the Mongol invasion into Persia which resulted in their demise as well as that of the ruling government.
As far as I can see what happened in 1979 in Iran was a complete duplicate of what had happened nearly 1400 years earlier (Moslem invasion into Persia) with the same amount of destruction and devastation in a similar attempt to deprive this proud nation of their freedom in all aspects.
That effort to crush this nation is as doomed now as it was then.
Hamid / December 15, 2009 6:20 AM
Your series of articles is an excellent historical resource which being an avid reader of International news groups (particularly UK), I find unmatched elsewhere. The IRI would dearly like to do away with history and scholarship the way in which Soviet Union attempted. The roster of slaughters which is probably far from exhaustive reminds me of Spanish fascist slogan 'Long Live Death' by which the crier I assume usually meant the death of others.Khomeneis fatwa on Rushdie is a very public call for his assassination, so I suspect other pillars of the IRI favor this mode of action. Khamenei ,as reported by Ganji , espoused early on his theory of terror to cow the silent masses.It seems to me the personality of Khameni is at the root of these bizarre crimes.I think in terms of personalities because guilt is individual although people who operate in groups like to think otherwise.The mindset behind the chain murders makes one think of Russian poet Mandelstams comment to his wife after his initial interrogation on the order of Stalin " You cannot imagine what they are like".What puzzles about these cases is the senselessness of it all, seemingly driven by demonic urges. I like to think of Stalin as a paranoid madman wandering the Kremlin with a knife in his hand, most of his time taken up with planning his next barbarity and simultaneously disavowing it.An unrepentant criminal at the apex of power.It is the Supreme Leaders closest associates who should be wary. Anyway these events need to be highlighted and documented and your article goes a long towards that. I wonder if the chain has ended or is still ongoing.The recent death by carbon monoxide poisoning of the telecommunications CEO and his wife in Teheran makes one wonder.
pirooz / December 15, 2009 10:14 AM
Pirouz is an IRI apologist, full of himself and full of it
Agha Irani / December 15, 2009 11:44 AM
@ Pirouz:
So your reasoning is, these assassinations are OK (especially the escalation under IRI) because ... the US has done more?
I don't understand your point. Are you trying to justify this bloody record by virtue of comparison to bloodier record?
Smart guy, our Pirouz!
Amir / December 15, 2009 7:38 PM
Mr. Shahimi, There is nothing new here except the same old, same old NOTHING.What are we going to do today to rid ourselves from Barbaric Republic?Your articles are boring and a waste of time.
Sohrab / December 15, 2009 10:04 PM
If in span of 100 years 10 or 15 people lost their lives due to assassination in the west then it is OK to murder 10s of 1000s of dissidents in Iran 15 years. The temptation of hugging 72 permanent virgins is making me to consider loving Islamic Rippofflic as well.
Aryajet / December 16, 2009 12:30 AM
Buddy, take me with you. lets see, 72+72=144 virgins now.can we swap? My kind of yummy religion.
Aryaturbojet / December 16, 2009 2:03 AM
Sohrab, Dr. Sahimi's articles are far from a waste of time...if you want change in Iran you should be able to understand its political and national history and these articles are extremely helpful for this purpose...
If it is such a waste of time I suggest you don't read them but please don't insult the amazing work Dr. Sahimi is doing...
Kouros / December 16, 2009 4:00 AM
"Pirouz is an IRI apologist, full of himself and full of it"
**Smartest thing anyone has written on this site.
PB / December 16, 2009 6:01 AM
@Pirouz,
You disgrace and discredit yourself and other IR sympathizers with your words and flawed logic, day after day on PBS frontline. It is on full display for all to see. No need for any more comments on that.
@Sohrab
Keivan / December 16, 2009 8:19 AM
My dear Kouros, You have your opinion and I have mine. The first rule of democracy: The ability to express one's thoughts in a free environment.You don't see it my way? fine. I respect that. But please don't tell me what I can or cannot say. That is my business. As for Sahimi, he must prove he is worth his credentials. This guy is a Mousavi supporter.If you can't read through him then you deserve to be Green. They don't want change, they want reform within the same system, The Barbaric Republic. Sorry pal, no deal.
Sohrab / December 16, 2009 8:51 AM
@Sohrab: I wasted more time by reading your two lines, than reading all of Dr. Sahimi's articles in here.
Heidar / December 16, 2009 9:32 AM
Sohrab khanom, I totally agree with you on that and I am not trying to stop you from expressing yourself but to do it in a respectable way. Another rule of democracy is to be able to debate ideas. So if you don't agree with him, instead of jsut trashing his work, give us your arguments. I might not agree with all of Dr. Sahimi's ideas but I think it is important to take them into consideration in order to make your own opinion on it.
Kouros / December 16, 2009 8:37 PM
I am serious. What are we going to do today to rid ourselves from the Barbaric Republic? Answer the question boys. I respect those who deserve respect. Answer the question.These people are tasked to do one thing and one thing only, trash the past.30 years have gone by and we are still stuck with ancient ideas and leftist propaganda.Our country is in its most critical time and this guy is teaching Qhajar dynasty.Don't you get it? Kouros Khanom.
I am not here to make you people happy. I am here to get these questions answered. You don't like my style, TOOOO BAD.
Sohran / December 16, 2009 11:04 PM
hahahaha that's what happen when I dont pay attention when I write...bebakhshid agha....
As for the topic, well...now you gave your arguments and I do agree with the fact that Iranians have a tendency to get stuck in the past....I am not in favour of a reform of this regime rather I want a total change but I will still consider Dr. Sahimi's articles relevant and instructive...
By the way, if you are not satisfied with the answers to these questions here then why not writing down your own ideas and publish them on TB? I would be very interested to read them...
Kouros / December 17, 2009 12:53 AM
All I am suggesting is for these Doctors to focus on current events and give us a direction(real time). I am sick and tired of reading about Mossadegh and the Shah. Shah and Mossadegh.They are dead and gone.What are we going to do now?These animals in Iran are killing, raping ...... our people. They are stealing everything in sight.We have no respect anywhere in the world. Our country (excuse me ladies and gentlemen)is going down the toilet and I got to read about ancient history.Now isn't that a bummer? I'll be looking for you. Take care.
Sohrab who reeks of the Monarchist cult is worse than IRI-apologist Pirouz.
At least Pirouz constructs arguments. Sohrab is full of huff & puff, without the ability to debate.
I appreciate Dr Sahimi's scholarly articles.
outsider / December 17, 2009 11:45 PM
Sohrab:
If you find my articles boring, stop reading them. No one forced you to do it. I am not insulted (I cannot care less), but your comment is absurd.
Unless we learn from the past, we cannot move constructively forward. The purpose of such articles is to bring to the attention of the readers, those who may not find such articles as boring as you do, what has happened in the past, including during the reign of the IRI that took the lion share of the article.
The reference to the Shah and Dr. Mosaddegh was only a small fraction of the article, and was included mostly for completeness. It seems to me that you do not want people to know what the Shah did, which, in my opinion, was the reason we got ourselves into the present mess.
Muhammad Sahimi / December 18, 2009 12:11 AM
What part of it don't you understand? Shah and Mossadegh are dead. What are we going to do now, December 17, 2009 Dr.? Any one can trash the past.Shed some light on the path to the future. We have been told these stories for decades now.In the United States people are FREE to read and FREE to comment and I intend to exercise my right.You don't like it? Go back to your beloved IR. The Shah has been gone for 30 years.What are you talking about? Besides, what bothers you people most is the fact that you have nothing and I mean nothing to show for the last 30.You and your petty handful of Greens who rush to rescue you everytime someone challenges your archaic mentality.During Qhajars we had 4% killings, Pahlavis? it was 8.6% and as for the barbaric Republic? it is 2000%. Oh, goodie. Students we now know who kills most. Bravo Dr. Sahimi Bravo. I am really looking forward to your tomorrow's lecture Dr. Surprise me.
Sohrab / December 18, 2009 12:59 AM
You began your response with a good question: "What part of it don't you understand?"
Indeed, what part of it don't YOU understand? You are perfectly free to express your opinion. Provided that you do not use profanity, they will all be posted here. But, that also means that you can be countered by whoever that does not agree with you, including me, and what I may say in response is not what you may like to hear or read. What part of it don't you understand?
What are the authors of the articles that you don't like supposed to do? As soon as you issue your Fatwa for the articles, they should jump and ask "how high"? That is not going to happen. What part of it don't you understand?
Why don't you answer the same question that you have repeatedly asked: YOU show us the future. YOU enlighten us with your thoughts. YOU tell us what you think is going to happen. If I did that, you will come back with some criticisms, because it is almost guaranteed that regardless of what I say, you will be a nay sayer. What part of it don't you understand?
Even when an article is about the crimes committed by the IRI, the author is an IRI supporter, simply because you find a small fraction of the article objectionable. What part of the absurdity of your accusation don't you understand?
Muhammad Sahimi / December 18, 2009 2:53 AM
Thank you for nothing. Like always Dr. You just presented a circular argument for you have nothing to add, NOTHING. Put something on the table first and then pretend you can mind read. By the way I do apologize if I hurt your feelings. I didn't know I was dealing with a sensitive guy. I bet you never had any callus on your hands and fingers. I don't understand fatwa. It sounds like Islamic gibberish to me, but I do understand the hurt and the cries of people in Iran and I distinguish between hollow and constructive presentations. You need to dig a lot deeper Dr..
Show the Iranian people something they can sink their teeth into. Something that can help them in real time. Enough of history lessons and trashing the past. I know you can do it if you tried. God bless the United States of America. My home. God bless Persia. The country your generation took away from me.
Sohrab / December 18, 2009 4:37 PM
Two more may be added to the list of those assassinated under Reza Shah:
In October 1933
1 - Abdol Hossein Teymourtache, the former all-powerful Minister of Court
2 - Vakil-el-Molk Diba (my uncle), his aide and friend
both strangled in Reza Shah's prison under the direct order of Mokhtari, the feared Police Chief.
Farhad Diba / January 15, 2010 9:45 PM
Sohrab,
Dr. Sahimi being Mousavi supporter or not, does not change anyting about the valuable recount of assasinations he has put together here. I find it very informative, even though I do not agree with some of his opinions.
That aside, what you are saying does not even makes sense. You either, agree with an artilce or not. If you don't, you either don't read it anymore or critic it. You debate by giving counter argumetns. But you are asking for the author not to write anymore because you don't like it. This is the same as IR idealogy.
Kia / January 16, 2010 2:22 AM
Well Pirouz, the west has no place to judge Iran. One also wonders about the authenticity of these protests in Iran? From 2001 onward the discussion amongst Neocons was "regime change." Now it seems the Neo-con plans are comming to fruition.
I applaud Obama's offer to negotiate without preconditions however, and I'm happy I voted for him!
Bruce / March 27, 2010 2:10 PM
After reading these articles in their entirety, there is only one poignant conclusion: Religion IS the Scourge of Mankind and anyone immersed in its' nefarious barbarisms deserves whatever fate befalls them.
Bob Johnson / June 30, 2010 3:38 AM
I think Sohrab is a Mossad agent. His input is just designed to be disruptive.
Be wary of such moles, my friends.
Good article, Dr. Sahimi!
We Iranians need to be a bit more rational and calm. Change will come in time. Just don't let agents such as Sohrab side-track our noble intentions. Carry on constructive dialogue. Speak the truth. Follow the golden rule.
Patience. Slow and steady wins the race [with oneself!].
IM / August 15, 2010 9:44 AM
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— Scout.com has released its updated rankings today for the Class of 2013, and its list of the top 300 players reinforces the perception that it will be a down year in the state of Washington. Just two Washington players are on the list — Skyline QB Max Browne at No. 5 overall, and Bellevue linebacker Myles Jack at No. 189. Both are among numerous players that you can see on the list have offers from Washington.
Last year, five in-state players were on Scout.com's final top 300 — Josh Garnett (42), Zach Banner (72), Jeff Lindquist (158), KeiVarae Russell (207) and Cedric Dozier (293).
— UW confirmed today that Dennis Slutak, the school's assistant athletic director for football operations, has left. He was said to have departed to pursue other opportunities. He was one of a handful of staffers who came from USC with Steve Sarkisian following the 2008 season.
— A few of you have asked if UW's Pro Day tomorrow is open to the public. It is not. But it is open to the media and we'll be there to report on it, as I'm sure will numerous others. CoachSark's site lists the 16 former Huskies who will participate and also details the drills involved.
— I should have passed this along earlier, but Jayda Evans has a nice story today on Regina Rogers, daughter of former Husky football star Reggie Rogers. The story touches on the complicated family dynamic involved.
— ESPN.com's Ted Miller updates recruiting in the Pac-12 so far. To clarify, however, while ESPN.com lists UW as having a commitment from RB Aaron Baltazar, other recruiting sites do not, and he has been quoted recently saying he is not committed to UW, though he is heavily considering the Huskies.


text:
with Peter Sinclair
The Intricate Network: Climate Deniers, Neo-Nazis, Brexiteers
It's a mistake to believe everything can be explained by a grand conspiracy.
It's also a mistake to believe that powerful people do not make alliances to further their interests.
The most powerful, and well-networked people on earth are in the fossil fuel industry, and their desire to remove all constraints on their power is the story of our time.
Le Monde Diplomatique:
New evidence reveals how a tightly concentrated global network of politicians and corporations with close ties to the Trump administration is working on behalf of powerful US fossil fuel interests in Britain and Europe.
Several candidates who were in the running to become the next British Prime Minister — Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, and Steve Baker — are part of this pro-Trump network.
The evidence comes thanks to a network map produced by independent investigative media outlet DeSmog UK, exposing for the first time the astonishing array of connections between President Donald Trump, right-wing lobbies in the US, and far-right parties in the UK and Europe.
Published after a leaked recording showed US secretary of state Mike Pompeo threatening to interfere in British democracy to block opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, the map unveils the extent to which US corporate lobbies with a direct line to senior Trump officials are backing both mainstream British politicians and European far-right extremists.
The map released by DeSmog UK exposes how UK Conservative politicians competing for leadership of the party — and of the country — are embedded in a Trumpist lobbying network with funding from US oil and gas companies.
The connections go through a nexus of hardline pro-Brexit lobbying groups campaigning for the break-up of the EU, concentrated around a single, unremarkable-looking road in London, Tufton Street. The Tufton Street network not only works closely with well-known British politicians, it also has extensive ties to far-right parties in Europe with roots in neo-Nazism, from the Sweden Democrats to the Brothers of Italy. Tufton Street groups have received $5.6 million from anonymous US donors since 2008.
The network map uncovers how this nexus of British groups around Tufton Street is being used, through funding and personnel, by the Atlas Network, a neoconservative non-profit based in Washington DC. Funded by the Kochs, Exxon and other fossil fuel giants, Atlas' main London partner is the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), which has lobbied key UK government ministers including several competing to become the next prime minister.
The Atlas Network has direct connections with top Trump administration officials and supports over 450 organizations around the world to promote its vision of the 'free-market' — a euphemism for eliminating government regulations, rolling back environment laws, and slashing public spending in the interests of the wealthiest.
Atlas Network think tanks are funded by some of the biggest US fossil fuel producers and funders of climate science denial — such as the Koch brothers (through the Koch Foundation and Donors Trust), ExxonMobil and MasterCard.
The map thus reveals the lines of influence by which US fossil fuel interests are using British lobbying groups based around Tufton Street to interfere in British politics.
Among the map's implications is that the UK's hardline Brexit lobby is far from truly 'nationalist' — but is actually operating as a front for Trump's 'America First' lobbying efforts to break into European markets.
Mat Hope, editor of DeSmog UK, explained the map's findings:
'The map shows how connected this network of people are that portray themselves as neutral experts, but who are actually campaigners for a very specific cause. It shows how a US style politics of funding highly ideological groups to spread a message that suits politicians with a particular radical free-market agenda is now infiltrating the UK.'
The result, he said, is that Brexit has been hijacked by 'major US funders of climate science denial including the Koch Brothers, and think tanks with strong ties to Donald Trump', whom he accused of 'influencing UK politics at the highest level.'
David and Charles Koch, the owners behind Koch Industries — America's largest private fossil fuel company — are major Atlas Network donors. They are notorious for funding climate science denial to the tune of more than one hundred million dollars over two decades, and have massive influence over the Trump administration through relationships with key federal staffers. ExxonMobil, one of the top funders of climate science denial, has financed Atlas-affiliates like the climate denying Heartland Institute and donated to the 'American Friends of IEA', a US-based fundraising vehicle for the IEA, Atlas' chief London partner.
The map suggests that the Trump-connected Atlas Network is directly implicated in secretive US lobbying efforts to subvert British democracy. Atlas' chief London partner, the IEA, was outed last year as having offered to broker access to senior British politicians for American donors trying to influence Brexit. The IEA denied the allegations, but the alleged scam appears to have been part of a wider strategy.
The IEA is closely connected to the notorious climate denial propaganda unit, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), situated on 55 Tufton Street. Three IEA trustees — Nigel Vinson, Neil Record, and Michael Hintze — are GWPF funders. Both the GWPF and IEA were among a total of nine Tufton Street-based organizations accused in court documents of breaking election laws in a coordinated push for a hard Brexit that would torpedo Britain's climate targets and leave 'gaping holes' in environmental regulation.
By illustrating for the first time how embedded these Tufton Street networks are within Washington's Atlas Network, the new map indicates that these hard-Brexit British lobbies acted in concert with powerful fossil fuel interests with significant leverage inside the Trump administration.
DeSmog UK's map illustrates how Conservative Party candidates competing to become Britain's next prime minister are deeply embedded in the Atlas Network through its Tufton Street partners.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson (Trump's favourite for prime minister) helped Tory MEP Daniel Hannan found the Tufton Street outfit Initiative for Free Trade (IFT), whose staffers have been hosted by Atlas-affiliated groups, from the American Enterprise Institute to the Heritage Foundation.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid is being advised by Tufton Street veteran Matthew Elliott — whose wife is a member of Americans for Tax Reform, the Koch-funded lobbying vehicle.
Jeremy Hunt has been hosted by the Tufton group, New Culture Forum, where Elliott is on the board. After Trump quoted white supremacist Katie Hopkins' tweet attacking the Muslim Mayor of London, Hunt said he agreed with Trump's overall sentiment '150 percent'.
Other candidates who have worked with the Atlas Network's main London partner, the IEA, include former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, described as 'the IEA's man in government'; environment secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit minister Steve Baker who were both linked to an IEA lobbying scandal to allow US donors to influence British policy advice; and former environment secretary Andrea Leadsom, a longstanding member of the IEA's Free Enterprise Group.
The same nexus works intimately with far-right movements in Europe.
Tufton veteran Tory MEP Daniel Hannan — who has himself been hosted by Atlas affiliates — cofounded the Conservative Party's EU network of political parties, the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE).
ACRE has cultivated contact with Spain's anti-Muslim Vox party; Matteo Salvini's anti-migrant League, part of Italy's populist government; and Brothers of Italy, a fringe anti-migrant party with fascist roots. For years, Hannan has worked alongside fellow ACRE member, Morten Messerschmidt, a Danish People's Party MEP who promoted ideas reminiscent of the 'great replacement' theory — the racist notion that white populations are being replaced by predominantly Muslim migrants. ACRE's newest members include the Sweden Democrats, another party with neo-Nazi roots, some of whose officials are former Nazis.
By far one of the most disturbing Tufton Street connections goes through Nigel Farage, founder and former head of the racist-harbouring UKIP party, and Vice Chair of Leave Means Leave, a hardline Brexit group, which is based on the next street along.
During Farage's leadership of UKIP, at one point the party mysteriously removed its ban on racists becoming members. Farage also met secretly with two anti-Semitic officials from the notorious neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP): one of whom had authored a pamphlet blaming a Jewish conspiracy for orchestrating 'the mass immigration of non-Europeans into every White country on earth.'
Farage later negotiated UKIP's alliance with an European Parliamentary grouping comprised largely of white-supremacist and pro-Nazi parties. This year, he formed the Brexit Party, which won the largest number of British votes in the European elections in May. Apart from cavorting with racists, Farage has a long sordid history of climate science denialism, as do numerous politiciansfrom his new party.
Given his embeddedness in the Atlas-dominated Tufton network, Farage's private meeting with Donald Trump during his recent London visit speaks volumes.
'We need effective regulation, although it's difficult to know how that might be designed,' professor Parvin told me on the unknown impact of foreign lobbying.
Farage exemplifies how this European nexus of climate science denialism and white supremacism is being weaponized by US fossil fuel giants with leverage over Trump's government, to co-opt the Brexit agenda for their own ends. This would seem to offer little to European citizens, and even less to Europe's minorities — but a great deal to US corporations.The Atlas Network has direct connections with top Trump administration officials and supports over 450 organizations around the world to promote its vision of the 'free-market' — a euphemism for eliminating government regulations, rolling back environment laws, and slashing public spending in the interests of the wealthiest.
I was first tipped off on this by a tweet from Naomi Oreskes.
The biggest map yet — A disturbing who's who of the pro-Brexit climate science denial network | @DeSmogUK https://t.co/2gx4ObazIe … @billmckibben @MichaelEMann @SISeneviratne @ProtectWinters
— Naomi Oreskes (@NaomiOreskes) June 14, 2019
Posted by greenman3610
Filed in Crock of the Week
3 Responses to "The Intricate Network: Climate Deniers, Neo-Nazis, Brexiteers"
indy222 Says:
I wonder if the good guys in this drama have what it takes to prevail over this stranglehold by the Koch's and the rest? Or will we just write more sternly worded letters to our (Koch bought/Koch paid for) congressman?
Allie G. Says:
We need to find out which oil companies are the worst (or perhaps the one that is the worst) and make an example of it by refusing to buy products from it. This needs to be a large grassroots effort. Could it happen? Could citizens break an oil company? I don't know, but I do know these companies have way too much power. They need more regulation.
Growing up in a House on Fire | NICK BROOKS Says:
[…] Climate denial and Brexit(!): https://climatecrocks.com/2019/06/22/the-intricate-network-climate-deniers-neo-nazis-brexiteers/ […]
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A home health care worker has been accused of stealing thousands of dollars from an elderly woman and her disabled daughter.
The worker, Lynn Bergacs, was responsible for caring for an 88-year-old woman and her 55-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy. South Brunswick police say Bergacs betrayed the women by siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars via stolen checks. Police say their investigation started last December.
The victims are not being identified. Police say they found checks and bank statements inside Bergacs' home. She was arrested and charged with theft and forgery.


During Women's Month, we're celebrating women in digital. Those who pioneered, those who perfected, and those who make a difference every day. We'll feature one woman per weekday for the month.
Today we are featuring a very interesting young women, Emma Dicks, just 28 years old, and is the founder of Code4CT. It was founded as a project of Innovate South Africa in 2014.
Emma's passion is to see young people create sustainable solutions to pressing problems faced in South Africa. According to a feature in Cosmopolitan (yes, Cosmo featured Emma in their list of Next Gen Startups, while studying, Emma worked on a project with some friends, running an innovation challenge for high school youth in Cape Town, Nairobi and Free Town. This combined her passion for education with her entrepreneurial flair, and she realised she loved helping young people develop their ideas. After graduating, Emma and her friends set about developing Innovate South Africa as an organisation to provide a platform for young innovators. Through Innovate South Africa, she also founded Code for Cape Town, which teaches high school girls coding skills.
A year after Code4CT launched, Emma won the Queen's Young Leader Award from Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2015. The programme has since grown and due to popular demand, it now offers additional workshops in more locations across Cape Town.


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Stylianos Gonatas
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Stylianos Gonatas as a colonel in 1922
Stylianos Gonatas (Greek: Στυλιανός Γονατάς; 15 August 1876[1] in Patras – 29 March 1966 in Athens) was a Greek military officer and Venizelist politician and Prime Minister of Greece between 1922 and 1924.
1 Early life and military career
2 The September 1922 Revolt
3 As prime minister
4 Later political career
Early life and military career[edit]
Gonatas was born in Patras.[2] He entered the Military Academy in 1892 and graduated in 1897. As a lieutenant, he participated in the Macedonian Struggle (1907–1909), and became aide-de-camp to Colonel Nikolaos Zorbas immediately following the 1909 Goudi Revolt. He also participated in the 1912-13 Balkan Wars and in the Allied Expedition to the Ukraine in 1919. Subsequently, he took part in the Asia Minor Campaign with the rank of colonel, first as a staff officer and later as divisional commander.
The September 1922 Revolt[edit]
Main article: 11 September 1922 Revolution
Gonatas with Plastiras and Georgios Papandreou in Ano Mousounitsa, October 1922
In August 1922, the Greek Army suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Turks, which forced it to evacuate Anatolia in great haste. In Greece, this disaster led to a political crisis, and military revolts broke out in September amongst the evacuated troops in Thessaloniki, Chios and Lesbos, headed primarily by Venizelist officers.
The army contingents in Lesbos formed a Revolutionary Committee headed by Colonel Gonatas, which dispatched by airplane the following demands to Athens: the dismissal of the government, the dissolution of Parliament, the holding of new elections, and the abdication of King Constantine in favour of the Diadoch, Prince George. The revolutionary movement swiftly spread to other centres of old and new Greece, aided by the Fleet, which had joined their cause. The cabinet immediately resigned, and on September 27 King Constantine abdicated for the second time in the course of his career, and the Diadoch succeeded to the throne of Greece as King George II.
On September 28 the revolutionary troops, headed by their leaders, Colonels Nikolaos Plastiras and Gonatas, entered Athens amidst wild scenes of enthusiasm. The revolutionary committee which took charge selected Alexandros Zaimis as Prime Minister, but as he was out of the country, Sotirios Krokidas was appointed as interim Prime Minister.
As prime minister[edit]
The first cabinet formed under the regime of the Revolutionary Committee (which had established itself as the real master of Greece with King George II merely as a figurehead) underwent several slight changes, the chief of which was caused by the refusal of Zaimis to retain the premiership (which remained vacant, with Sotirios Krokidas as acting premier), and after having been in power for less than two months resigned on November 24, chiefly owing to internal differences arising from the Trial of the Six (ex-ministers, statesmen, and military leaders tried by a revolutionary tribunal on the charges of high treason). The British government, through its minister in Athens, Lindley, urged that the accused should be treated leniently. While certain members of the cabinet were prepared to accept the British suggestion, the more irreconcilable elements refused to submit to what they considered as foreign intervention in Greek internal affairs, and the cabinet accordingly resigned. On November 27, 1922, a new cabinet, composed exclusively of members of the Revolutionary Committee and of the republican group which formed the committee's most active supporters, was appointed. Colonel Gonatas was appointed premier, and Konstantinos Rentis, one of the leaders of the republican group, as acting minister for foreign affairs (see 1922 Government Crisis).
The Gonatas government served until 11 January 1924, when it resigned in favor of fellow-liberal Eleftherios Venizelos, who had returned from exile in Paris. For his service, Gonatas was given the Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer. On 31 May 1924, the National Assembly promoted him and Plastiras to the rank of lieutenant general.
Later political career[edit]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2019)
After his service as Prime Minister, Gonatas resigned his commission in the army. In the same year, a Republic was proclaimed and the legislature expanded to include a second house: the Senate. Gonatas ran for and was elected to the Senate as a Liberal in the 1929 election representing Attica and Boeotia. He was re-elected and later served as President of the Senate from 1932 to its dissolution in 1935.
During the Nazi Occupation of Greece, Gonatas was imprisoned in the Haidari concentration camp for four months. After the German withdrawal, Gonatas was freed and re-entered political life. When he quarrelled with Themistoklis Sophoulis, the leader of the Liberal Party, he formed his own party, the Party of National Liberals (Κόμμα Εθνικών Φιλελευθέρων) which contested the 1946 general election in coalition with the conservative People's Party. Gonatas' party elected 30 members of Parliament. Having joined forces with the monarchist party, Gonatas committed himself to support the restoration of the monarchy in the 1946 plebiscite, which restored King George II to the throne.
In the Konstantinos Tsaldaris government from 1946–1947, he served as Minister for Public Works. In the 1950 general election, Gonatas' party first allied with Napoleon Zervas' National Party of Greece but when he was discredited for his collaboration with the Nazis, Gonatas decided to run in coalition with the Liberal Party. In this election, for the first time in his political career, Gonatas was not elected. He never sought public office again; continuing only to serve as former Prime Ministers did on the Crown Council advising the King until his death on March 29, 1966, in Athens.
Corfu incident
^ Note: Greece officially adopted the Gregorian calendar on 16 February 1923 (which became 1 March). All dates prior to that, unless specifically denoted, are Old Style.
^ Mavrogordatos, George Th. (2016). 1915: Ο Εθνικός Διχασμός (in Greek) (7th ed.). Athens: Patakis Publishers. p. 322.
Sotirios Krokidas Prime Minister of Greece
November 27, 1922—January 24, 1924 Succeeded by
Eleftherios Venizelos
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1Head of military/dictatorial government. 2Head of rival government not controlling Athens. 3Head of emergency or caretaker government. 4Head of collaborationist government during the Axis occupation (1941–44).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stylianos_Gonatas&oldid=905548264"
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'Goober Peas' on 'Gardening' Oct. 31
UGA CAES File Photo
Walter Reeves
On this week's "Gardening in Georgia," host Walter Reeves will sing "Goober Peas." And once you've heard it, you'll be thankful this is a gardening show. The show's season finale airs Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 7:30 p.m. on Georgia Public Television. It will be rebroadcast Saturday, Nov. 3, at noon.
Reeves bursts into song at the thought of peanuts. David Chambers, garden manager at Callaway Gardens, shows Reeves the odd way peanuts reproduce: The yellow flowers produce a peg-like stem which buries itself underground. The end of the peg swells to form a peanut.
'Steamed' Weeds
Getting rid of weeds is a never-ending job. But Reeves shows how to do it by using the sun to heat the soil. He tills the soil, then waters it thoroughly. Placing a cinder block in the center of the area, he covers it with clear plastic. Stones and soil anchor the plastic at the edges. After eight weeks during hot, sunny weather, the plastic covers a weedless expanse of soil, ready for planting.
Kerry Smith, garden educator at Callaway Gardens, shows Reeves two ways to make those ugly plastic window boxes more attractive. For one, she uses sheet moss, hot-glued to the plastic. Then she covers her second box with lengths of thin bamboo, once again hot-glued to the plastic. For winter color (and edible plants part as well) she plants the box with viola, calendula, lettuce and licorice-scented acorus.
Plants to Wear, Eat, Admire
What plant family can you wear, eat and admire, all in the same day? Reeves introduces some members of the hibiscus family: cotton, okra, rose of Sharon, tropical hibiscus, scarlet hibiscus and Confederate rose. He points out a new, compact variety of red-pod okra "Little Lucy," which is half the size of the more common "Burgundy."
Most flowering plants have foliage when they produce flowers. Not the surprise lily! Reeves describes how Lycoris radiata, also known as hurricane lily and red spider lily, produces leaves in the spring from an underground bulb. The foliage dies away in summer. Then in September, when you least expect it, strong stems topped by, red spider-like flowers pop up in your garden.
"Gardening in Georgia" airs every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. A Web site provides further information. The show is produced especially for Georgia gardeners by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and GPTV.
Dan Rahn is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.


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Susan Grimes, Birth Date: 1 April 1842, Death Date: 15 June 1871,
Although not directly listed in the memorandum book, Walter Grimes purchased enough food rations for four people.  According to New York passenger lists, the Grime's traveled from Liverpool to New York aboard the Colorado, arriving 28 July 1868.

Susan Grimes
Susan Coote
Although not directly listed in the memorandum book, Walter Grimes purchased enough food rations for four people. According to New York passenger lists, the Grime's traveled from Liverpool to New York aboard the Colorado, arriving 28 July 1868.
Walter Tate Grimes (Age: 30)
Walter Henry Grimes (Age: 4)
Amy Ellen Grimes (Age: 2)
1870 Census, Salt Lake County


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Tell Me Something I Don't Know 020: Joe Lupo and the The Invincible Iron Man
Tell Me Something I Don't Know 7:37 pm Tue Dec 10, 2013
In this episode of Boing Boing's Tell Me Something I Don't Know podcast, we speak with Joseph Lupo, a printmaker and
professor at West
Virginia University. His work focuses on how writers and artists
communicate through comics. For more than a decade, he has
deconstructed and examined a single volume of The Invincible Iron
Man comic book: Volume 01, Issue 178, published in 1984.
"It is a different kind of superhero issue for a few reasons," says
Lupo. "For one, never in this story does the superhero Iron Man ever
directly appear. Also, this issue is split into two different story
lines."
Using that single issue as source material, he invited 23
nationally-recognized artists to create new work inspired by that
original comic. The result: a curated group exhibition, "Shame of the
City: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Comic Book Narratives,"
which opens at Future Tenant in Pittsburgh on December 13, 2013.
We speak with Lupo about the show, and what we can learn about
communication from studying comics.
GET TMSIDK: RSS | On iTunes | Download episode | Listen on Stitcher
Follow TMSIDK on Twitter
Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced and hosted by three talented cartoonists and illustrators:
Jim Rugg, a Pittsburgh-based comic book artist, graphic designer, zinemaker, and writer best known for Afrodisiac, The Plain Janes, and Street Angel. His latest
project is SUPERMAG.
Jasen Lex is a designer and illustrator from Pittsburgh. He is currently working on a graphic novel called Washington Unbound. All of his art and comics can be found at jasenlex.com.
Ed Piskor is the cartoonist who drew the comic, Wizzywig, and draws the Brain Rot/ Hip Hop Family Tree comic strip at this very site, soon to be collected by Fantagraphics Books and available for pre-order now.
tmsidk
"The Nice House on the Lake" is a cozy riff on cosmic horror
Around this time last year, I wrote about my love for The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds, a sort of meta-level X-Files riff about conspiracy… READ THE REST
"Spy Superb" is a fun new comic about the best and worst spy in the world
Spy thrillers are funny things. As a life-long fan of genre fiction, I've always had a soft spot for a good espionage thriller. But as an adult and a journalist… READ THE REST
20th Century Men brilliantly flips the Cold War on its head, with superheroes
20th Century Men is a sprawling new alternate history comic book series from Deniz Camp and S. Morian. The official synopsis gives you a vague idea of what you're in… READ THE REST


As I mentioned in Part I of my recap of our weekend in Los Angeles, we were meant to end our first day with that iconic LA sunset at Griffith Observatory. It will come as a surprise to no one who has driven in LA that not allotting at least an hour to go seven miles meant that we missed the sunset - although it looked beautiful sitting in traffic on the 101. So we decided we'd hit it up first thing in the morning. But first, we made time for breakfast at Republique. Food is always an important feature of our travels, and this LA hot spot did not disappoint. Fun fact: it was built by Charlie Chaplin the the late 1920s as a mixed use space!
It was then on to Griffith Observatory. It was a misty, grey morning - the kind that is great for photos but not so great for sweeping views. We enjoyed wandering the grounds of the observatory, admiring the architecture - and my daughter absolutely loved the exhibits inside. Turns out watching Space Racers on PBS has taught her a thing or two.
The iconic Hollwood sign as seen from the Griffith Observatory on a grey August morning.
We set off from Griffith to Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright's first Los Angeles design. As a native Chicagoan and architecture lover, I had to see it while we were in town. The house, so named for the benefactor's favorite flower, recently underwent an extensive restoration. I wish photos had been allowed inside because it is truly stunning. The attention to detail is typical FLW, and the style is familiar, but new, as he experimented with different designs befitting the west coast climate and lifestyle. I share with you just one exterior photo but encourage anyone who visits LA to stop by the house. The docents are incredibly knowledgeable and the house is a work of art.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. This is the view of the main living area on the east-west axis of the house.
We ended our day with a brief walking tour of downtown LA. Within a several block radius, you can visit the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Broad Museum, eat at Grand Central Market, visit the Bradbury Building, and browse books at The Last Bookstore. Here are some highlights from that tour.
The interior of the Bradbury Building in DTLA.
So, Los Angeles, forgive me for judging you so harshly. Turns out you are a bit of a gem, and we'll be back for more very soon.


From the time you were old enough to appreciate birthday cakes, you've already been exposed to the psychic power of candles. You just make a wish and blow!
It's not that candles have power in themselves, but they're also an excellent psychic tool that allows you to harness the psychic power of intention. They help you focus your mind on your desire, and let you shape, form, and center this desire into one focal point (the candle).
And by either blowing the flame (such as on birthday cakes) or deliberately keeping it lit (like on vigil candles), you release that concentrated force (your desire) into the universe.
Candles are effective for manifesting intentions. Aside from birthdays, they're also used during prayers and vigils. During a vigil, a person lights candles with their requests in mind, which is simply centering and strengthening their intentions.
Candles are good for good for mindful relaxation, too, like when you intend to release negative energy, such as anxiety and stress.
Also, candles are utilized during séances, wherein the psychic medium and the participants gather their collective energies, with the intention of communicating with the spirits of the departed. Many psychics also light candles when making psychic predictions, and while conducting a reading.
Furthermore, candles have a way of changing the ambience in a room, making it more subdued and calm. This sense of calmness that candles radiate allows you to become more sensitive to your psychic senses, and become more connected with the universe.
• Select a candle that you feel most comfortable with. Listen to your intuitive senses when choosing the color, shape, size, and scent.
Always use a new candle, because those that have already been lit have embedded energies in them from when they were previously used.
• Go to a quiet room with minimal wind or draft.
• Light your candle and close your eyes.
• Meditate. Relax your mind and body, and when your breathing becomes relaxed, express your intention. Visualize your desire in your mind, and mentally affirm it is what you want.
• Remember that when you state your desire, you need not plead or beg.
• Believe, claim, and thank the universe. Because you know without a doubt that what you intend will come to pass, it's only fitting that you send out your appreciation to the universe as well.
• Then bring your awareness back into the room.
Candles are a great psychic tool to use for focusing and releasing your power of intention.
And if you need help knowing the outcome of any desire you have, a psychic reading will guide you towards making the right decisions! I hope you found this article helpful!