Iran International
Ahmad Moradi Talebi went for his usual evening stroll with his then pregnant wife on August 10, 1987, in Geneva, Switzerland. It would be his last.
Two men believed to be Iranian agents were waiting for the young couple.
One man pushed Talebi’s wife aside while the other shot dead the former Iranian Air Force pilot who opposed the Iran-Iraq war and had defected to Iraq and then Europe.
He is just one of 862 extrajudicial executions carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran according to a landmark report by US-based rights group the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC) for human rights in Iran.
But in the names of the countless victims, little method to the murders emerges.
“The targets are not always that obvious. He [Ahmad Moradi Talebi] was against the Iran-Iraq war and the continuation of the war. He was killed, another pilot was killed in Switzerland and then some random Kurdish activists were killed in Sweden,” said Roya Boroumand, the executive director of ABC, on the latest episode of Eye for Iran podcast.
“It’s very hard to know who they [Iran] target.”
From active members of the Zoroastrian community, to those engaged in virtual political activism like Jamshid Sharmahd, to lesser-well known activists with a following inside Iran – all were among the dead.
Higher profile targets - including President-elect Donald Trump, his former national security adviser John Bolton, his secretary of state Mike Pompeo and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad - eluded Tehran's grasp.
“The patterns and the scope of these killings have not been understood properly,” Boroumand told the Eye for Iran podcast.
452 assassinations outside Iran
The ABC report titled “Iran: State Violence Beyond Borders” details Iranian state violence carried out in countries across the Middle East, Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.
Out of the 862 cases of extra judicial killings, 452 of them were outside Iran’s borders. There are also 124 cases of death threats, attempted kidnappings and assassinations.
The wide scope and extent came as no surprise to Boroumand, but the brazenness of the attacks did.
“What was shocking was the arrogance with which it happens. Meaning, they can go to the office of a doctor who is organizing protests in Switzerland, in Geneva, and threaten them in person,” said Boroumand.
In many cases the host countries where these killings or attempts allegedly took place avoided making arrests or even allowed the suspects – in particular state agents – to leave, according to Boroumand’s research.
The lack of action by liberal-democratic governments, she said, contributes to a culture of impunity.
'There once lived a person named...'
For Boroumand, this project, which has been almost 23 years in the making, is more than collecting statistics and providing fact-based evidence on the topic of transnational repression. It’s about the people behind the numbers.
“There once lived a person named...” is written on her foundation’s website to memorialize the victims. The interactive map detailing 45 years of state violence by Iran domestically and internationally aims to convey the scope and seriousness of the issue, said Boroumand.
Due to the fear of speaking out and the difficulty in proving the responsibility of the Iranian state for the kidnappings and assassinations, Boroumand believes the actual number of victims is much higher.
Documenting these cases also helps to expose the way in which the Iranian establishment carries out their attacks.
Many alleged killings in the early days after the dawn of the Islamic Republic in 1979 involved Iranian agents and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Over time, Iran’s proxies started to take over, and eventually Tehran reportedly hired criminal gangs.
The Islamic Republic silences critics by turning to criminal organizations like the Hells Angels, Rumba and Foxtrot, according to a report by the Washington Post.
One case involved Pouria Zeraati, an exiled Iranian journalist working for Iran International.
In March 2023, Zeraati was ambushed and stabbed outside his home in London by attackers who were Romanian nationals.
UK authorities have yet to publicly establish any link to Tehran, which denies responsibility for the attack.
Attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions in Europe this year have involved Tehran not just hiring local criminals, but also minors, according to a Bloomberg report this month.
A personal tragedy
There is also a very personal connection for Boroumand, who understands firsthand what the families' victims are going through.
Boroumand’s father, Dr. Abdorrahman Boroumand, the namesake of her and her sister Ladan's rights organization, is one of the victims included in the ABC report.
“My father was a lawyer and a pro-democracy activist,” said Boroumand.
Dr. Boroumand, a close ally of Shapour Bakhtiar, an Iranian politician who served as the last Prime Minister of Iran under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, opposed the Islamic republic and was a member of the National Resistance Movement of Iran.
On April 18, 1991, Boroumand was stabbed to death in the lobby of his Paris apartment by agents of the Islamic Republic.
Three months later, Bakhtiar and his assistant Soroush Katibeh were also killed by three agents of the Iranian government. Iran denied any involvement.
“They couldn't get into the apartment, but they killed a policeman, a French policeman, and they killed even Bakhtiar's neighbor because they rang at the wrong door. And they wounded her sister, and one policeman was paralyzed for life,” said Boroumand, “It was like tragedy over tragedy.”
But the Boroumands would not be silenced.
Instead, they created one of the only archives of Iran’s human rights abuses to memorialize its victims, carrying on their father’s legacy.
To watch the full interview with Roya Boroumand on Eye for Iran, go to YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon or Castbox.
Reports on social media of shops selling mostly Chinese-imported Christmas accessories, eateries displaying Christmas decorations and offering themed menus and people gathering outside churches or throwing Christmas parties at home were abundant this year.
Many recent posts on social media show people buying trees, taking photos in front of shop windows or with men dressed as Santa Claus on the street.
This year, there was also a video of singing and dancing on Christmas night near the Armenian church on Tehran's Mirza-ye Shirazi Street. Unlike last year, the videos showed many unveiled women on the street, too.
People dancing on the street in Tehran on December 25
There have been numerous reports in Iranian media in recent years that quote owners of businesses in the area saying most of the shoppers who buy the trees, accessories, and gifts are Muslims.
Unsurprisingly, the phenomenon has been met with consternation by clerics.
“Celebrations and activities related to Christmas are not admissible unless necessary because they promote the non-Islamic culture," conservative Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi ruled in 2014.
"Necessity here means harm to familial relations and friendships [with Christians] if these activities are not performed,” the senior cleric said in response to a question on whether Muslims could congratulate each other for Christmas and celebrate the event.
Only a tiny proportion of the Iranian society are Christians. According to the 2016 census, Christians of recognized denominations – mainly Armenians and Assyro-Chaldeans – comprised around 0.15 percent of the population.
Christmas decorations in Jolfa Armenian neighborhood and Vank Cathedral in Isfahan
Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism are recognized as legitimate religions in the Islamic Republic and their followers enjoy some degree of freedom of worship. They also have their own representatives in the parliament.
Although converting from Islam can carry the death penalty, conversion to Christianity has been on the rise in Iran.
"Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel," David Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries said in 2018. The Christian Broadcast Network found in the same year that "Christianity is growing faster in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in any other country."
However, there are no reliable figures on the number of converts who mostly worship at underground establishments often called house churches.
Most Armenians who make up the biggest Christian community in Iran live in Tehran, Isfahan, and the northwestern provinces.
Mirza-ye Shirazi Street, a formerly Armenian neighborhood with a large church, and Majidieh neighborhood in the east of the capital where many Armenian families live have become the most popular destinations for Christmas enthusiasts in Tehran who want to immerse themselves in a Christmassy mood and environment.
Assyro-Chaldeans celebrate on December 25 but unbeknownst to most ordinary Iranians, Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6 following the tradition of Eastern Orthodox Christians.
The Christmas spirit prevails on Mirza-ye Shirazi Street and elsewhere in Tehran from mid-December when many shops and shopping centers start displaying Christmas trees and lighting.
Christmas spirit on Tehran's Mirza-ye Shirazi Street
Vank Cathedral, a four-hundred-year-old church and major sightseeing destination in Jolfa, Isfahan’s old Armenian quarter, is another very popular destination for Christmas enthusiasts.
Some travel to the city in December and early January only to visit the cathedral and the beautiful lighting and decorations on display.
Last year, local media reported hundreds of people rushing to the cathedral on December 25.
The cathedral’s doors were closed earlier than usual that evening but some among the boisterous crowd of singing and dancing youth outside the church tried to force the gates open. The crowd was eventually violently dispersed by the police.
Hundreds gathered outside the same cathedral this year, too, but police intervention was not reported.
Young people outside Isfahan's Vank Cathedral jokingly chanting an Islamic slogan on December 25
The videos posted on social media, however, showed the crowd of largely young Muslim men chanting “Peace be upon the Prophet Muhammed and his household”, a common practice in Islamic gatherings and after prayers, after a few among the crowd jokingly prompted the chanting.
This was taken as disrespect to Christians by some including Mehdi Mazruei, a former member of the City Council of Isfahan, who said the crowd’s behavior was offensive.
Authorities should “guard the spiritual capital of hundreds of years of respectful coexistence among [followers] of various religions [in the city],” Mazruei wrote on X on Wednesday.
This year, there were also citizen reports of a more pronounced Christmas spirit in shopping centers and cafes of Tabriz, the capital of the East Azarbaijan Province, which has a smaller Armenian and Assyro-Chaldean population than Tehran and Isfahan. Tabriz has several churches including the Saint Mary Armenian Apostolic church dating to the Safavid period.
In the past two decades, Valentine's Day and Halloween have also become very popular among Muslim Iranians.
Religious fundamentalists and the hardline political establishment who even frown upon the celebration of pre-Islamic festivals such as Nowrouz (the Persian New Year), Yalda (the Winter Solstice Festival), and Charshanbeh Souri (an ancient fire festival) as pagan traditions are very concerned about these celebrations which they often describe as a Western cultural onslaught on Shi'ite Iran.
For several years, pundits have suggested that the rising popularity of Christmas in an Islamic country like Iran is a collective response to the government's attempts to promote Shi'ite mourning ceremonies such as Ashura and Arbaeen over the celebration of happy occasions in the society.
“What is important to people is life and happiness. (Celebration of Christmas and other western holidays) is … a reaction to the traditional (Shi'ite) culture,” philosopher and university professor Bijan Abdolkarimi told local media in 2020.
"I haven't been to Christmas celebrations, but why do (some) people mock it so much? Is it wrong for people to have an excuse to be happy?" an anonymous user on X said.
"Is it wrong for us to have an excuse to be joyous when the rest of the world is being joyous? They keep mocking and saying we are not Christians," the user weighed in.
"Forget about religion and just be happy."