Iran International
The murder of a renowned film director and his wife in Iran has raised suspicions of parallels with the serial murders of intellectuals by intelligence agents in the late 1990s.
Dariush Mehrjui and Vahideh Mohammadifar were stabbed to death at their villa near Tehran Saturday. Bodies were discovered by their daughter, Mona Mehrjui, the same evening.
The revered eighty-three-year-old director refrained from engaging in politics for many years. However, over the past year, he subtly expressed support for the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom anti-regime movement. This support is speculated to be a possible reason for him being targeted by the state, according to some allegations.
Mehrjoui had also condoled dissident soccer legends Ali Daei and Ali Karimi, and Elnaz Rekabi, a climber who was one the first to ditch her hijab in an international competition, in a handwritten letter he published on Instagram at the height of the protests last year for “the catastrophic massacre of innocent teenagers and youth”.
BBC’s Persian channel on Sunday also aired excerpts of an unfinished documentary about Mehrjui’s life by Hassan Solhjou, a filmmaker and a senior producer of BBC World Service, in which he was expressing his opposition to compulsory hijab by removing his wife’s headscarf. In another scene, he said he was tired of “four decades of deceit”, referring to the 44 years of Islamic rule in Iran.
Iranian media, politicians and activists have extensively pointed out the similarity between the double murders and the killings of tens of dissident politicians, writers, activists, and even academics over a period of at least two years that came to be known as “chain murders” in the late 90s.
“The news of Dariush Mehrjui and his wife’s murders was an immediate reminder of the serial murders in the 1990s, particularly the murders of Dariush Forouhar and his wife [Parvaneh Eskandari], which bore dire consequences [for the country],” Jomhouri Eslami wrote Monday in an editorial entitled “Take The Karaj Murder Seriously”.
Forouhar, who was the leader of the pan-Iranist Nation Party of Iran, and his wife Parvaneh met a brutal end when they were repeatedly stabbed at their Tehran home in November 1998. These heinous killings triggered widespread national outrage and were promptly linked to dozens of other unsolved murders of intellectuals by both the public and the reformist media.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his supporters blamed “foreign enemies” including Israel for the murders of Forouhar and his wife but public demand for answers eventually led to the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami to take action to find the culprits.
At Khatami's insistence, a three-member investigative team was formed, and it ultimately confirmed suspicions that the intelligence ministry was directly involved in the killings.
The ministry issued an unprecedented statement on January 4, 1999, which blamed “rogue” agents for four of the killings while calling the murders “despicable and abhorrent” and the minister, Ghorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, favored by Khamenei who had still not consolidated his power as Supreme Leader, was replaced with the relatively moderate Ali Younesi.
The chain murders and the scope of the conspiracy are still shrouded in mystery. Intelligence agents arrested for the killing were tried behind closed doors by a military court and Saeed Emami, a deputy minister who allegedly masterminded the murders was said to have committed suicide in prison.
The Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, which serves as a mouthpiece for moderate traditionalist clerics and holds the distinction of being the Islamic Republic's oldest newspaper, called upon the authorities not to prematurely conclude their investigations, even if they discover that theft played a role in the incident.
“One should not ignore the possibility that theft could have been used as a cover for the real goal and a group planned and carried out the theft through several intermediaries as a cover up,” the newspaper warned.
Officials including President Ebrahim Raisi and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei have ordered the case to be promptly investigated and a police spokesman has said that so far seven have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the double murders.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said during his Monday press conference that “the actions taken by the resistance front were within their rights, in response to the Zionist crimes against Palestinians.”
Kanaani held photos of the aftermath of the bombing on Gaza which followed the infiltration of militants by air, land and sea, slaughtering hundreds of civilians, and reiterated Tehran’s warning that if the offensive on the enclave continues, the situation could escalate beyond control, “jeopardizing international peace and security.”
However, when he was directly asked about Iran engaging in the war in case of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza, Kanaani dodged a tangible response and only said that Hamas can defend itself. Thousands of Hamas operatives infiltrated Israel by land, air and sea on October 7, massacring hundreds of civilians and kidnapping at least 199 into Gaza, including women and children.
Kanaani said that the actions “cannot be limited to a single front,” and that Israelis "expose themselves to all sides that consider themselves committed to supporting the Palestinian people," suggesting its proxies on Israel's Lebanese and Syrian borders will once again be mobilized. On Sunday, Hezbollah began its most active day of attacks against Israel since the war began as tensions simmered and 28 towns and villages in Israel were subsequently evacuated.
Kanaani claimed that the Palestinian resistance represents the Palestinian nation against Israel, a statement that directly contradicts remarks by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority. Abbas criticized Hamas on Sunday but then quickly rescinded the comment after alleged pressure from Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian news agency WAFA initially quoted Abbas telling Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that Hamas’ policies and actions “do not represent the Palestinian people", the Palestine Liberation Organization the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The reference to Hamas was later removed, the statement only claiming "the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and not the policies of any other organization.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who arrived back in Iran after a tour of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Qatar Monday, has been equally threatening in his language, warning of a “huge earthquake” in Israel if airstrikes continue on the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the regime continues to deny its being behind the war declared by Hamas on October 7.
Amir-Abdollahian met with leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad during his trips to gain accurate intelligence on the status of Hamas on the “battleground,” the Iranian diplomat said. Hamas has reassured Iran that it has the “necessary equipment” to confront Israel, not surprising after years of being funded at least $100m annually in addition to military and logistical support.
After his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over the weekend, Amir-Abdollahian said “I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place. Any step the resistance will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.” Hezbollah, the biggest of Iran's proxies, garners at least $700m a year in funding, and is known to have a far greater arsenal at its fingertips thanks to regime support, which the group showcased just weeks ago at a military exhibitionfor the media.
The regime terms Israel "the Zionist entity" or "Zionist regime" and the "resistance" front or axis is the term to describe Iran's logistic, financial and intelligence support for Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It also supports proxies on Israel's other borders, Iran and Lebanon, in addition to several others around the region.
Amir-Abdollahian is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia for an urgent open-ended extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Wednesday to address the escalating war. The meeting was called by Riyadh, which until the war broke out was teetering ever closer to a normalization deal with Israel which Iran had vocally opposed, leading analysts to suggest the war was orchestrated to debilitate the talks.
While Iran tries to make it look like it is pursuing diplomatic means to end the crisis, the Islamic Republic’s authorities continue threatening Israel with destruction and are not shy about their military and intelligence support for Hamas. Echoing similar sentiments by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Revolutionary Guard commander-in-chief Hossein Salami said Monday that the new Gaza war is “the first phase of the impending collapse of the Zionist regime.”
Iran sent a veiled warning through its UN mission on Saturday against Israel's potential ground invasion of Gaza. The Iranian message stressed that it does not want further escalation, but warned, "If the Israeli apartheid’s war crimes and genocide are not halted immediately, the situation could spiral out of control and ricochet far-reaching consequences".
Faraz Daily, an online newspaper reminded readers that Ahmadinejad used to deny the Holocaust and asked why he has been "silent in the face of Israel's crimes in Gaza" more than one week after Hamas's bloody attack.
The former president was in Guatemala during the past week to take part in a conference about water resources. However, he came back to Tehran on Saturday evening. Faraz Daily asked whether Ahmadinejad is afraid of taking an anti-Israeli stance under current circumstances, or he does not want to harm his popularity ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The reason for Ahmadinejad and others, including former hardline nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and their like-minded ultraconservatives in the Paydari Party, who have been criticized by the publication, is that these political figures may only echo Khamenei's praise and support for Hamas's atrocity and come under pressure from the Iranian public opinion that overwhelmingly supports Israel as it is evident from their social media posts, or risk being demonized and even prosecuted by Khamenei's hardline supporters.
The reason Ahmadinejad, along with others like former hardline nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and their fellow ultraconservatives in the Paydari Party, have avoided to speak out is because if they do, they would be compelled to echo Khamenei's praise and support for Hamas's actions. However, the Iranian public opinion largely supports Israel, and they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
During the past week, former Reformist President Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in social media posts and press interviews supported Khamenei's positions and immediately came under fire by the public for sympathizing with Hamas.
However, Faraz daily noted that although the state television in Iran, which is the closest media outlet to Khamenei, reflected Khatami and Zarif's opinions about Hamas, it continued its usual criticism of both Reformist figures. Khamenei’s hardliner loyalists do not miss an opportunity to attack anyone who might be slightly independent of the ruler’s rhetoric and confrontational policies.
The media coverage of Ahmadinejad and Jalili's silence may be an attempt by Iran's hardliners to pressure them and their like-minded politicians into expressing support for Khamenei. Since the 2022 protests, political backing for Khamenei has mainly come from staunch hardliners who support him, expecting his favor in return.
Former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani also attempted to remain non-committal. He posted a typically equivocal tweet that was apparently about the war in Israel but didn't explicitly express support for Khamenei pro-Hamas rhetoric. Later, he deleted the tweet and shared an audio message on X, which was equally vague and did not provide the clear support for Khamenei that hardliners desired.
Centrist daily Sazandegi on Saturday criticized Ahmadinejad and Jalili as well Iranian Nobel laureates Shirin Ebadi (2003) and Narges Mohammadi (2023) for their silence about Gaza. However, the daily did not say why the members of Executives of Sazandegi Party, to which the newspaper belongs, have not been openly taking a stance on the Gaza war and why those mentioned in the article need to rush to express their opinion.
The purpose of the newspaper for attacking these individuals was possibly to show its loyalty to Khamenei in a bid to secure his approval for the candidacy of its affiliated party members in the upcoming March parliamentary elections.