“We ask humanitarian communities and advocates of peace and freedom and the rights of oppressed nations, especially now at a time when European countries are in negotiations with the Islamic Republic, to take the election of Ebrahim Raisi, one of the figures known for crimes and massacres committed by the regime, as the president of Iran as a serious message of a continuing policy of murder, terror, and violence,” read a statement from the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan political parties on Monday.
Raisi is accused of playing a role in 1988 prison massacres. He sat on a “death committee” that oversaw the execution of an estimated 5,000 dissidents.
Ghassemlou was elected secretary general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in 1973. After Iran’s 1979 revolution in Iran, Ghassemlou was labeled by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini an “enemy of God” and a “holy war” was declared against the KDPI.
Following Khomeini’s death in 1989, Ghassemlou was participating in peace talks with Tehran. On July 13, 1989, he went to a planned rendezvous with Iranian representatives in Vienna when he was shot dead.
The gunmen were believed to be operatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran who soon left Austria.
The Kurdish parties criticized the Austrian government for allowing the suspects to escape justice.
“The stance of the Austrian state as a European country that has chosen to remain neutral in international conflicts, both before the incident and after the incident by keeping and then returning the terrorists to Iran, has clearly paved the way to cover up the terrorist act since then and now by closing that case in return for their economic and political benefits and relationship with the terrorist regime of Iran, has been a stain of shame for the state of Austria,” their statement read.
Thirty-two years later, the city where Ghassemlou was shot is the site for talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, lifting US sanctions and bringing Tehran back into full compliance with its nuclear obligations.
Ghassemlou was fluent in eight languages. His book Kurdistan and Kurd has been published in multiple languages and serves as a primary source for Kurdish history. He had taught at Charles University in Prague until the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
“As we commemorate this heartbreaking day where 32 years ago Dr. Ghassemlou and his friends became victims of Islamic Republic’s terrorism… we renew our promise of loyalty to the brilliant leader of our nation and his goals, and express our curse at the freedom-seizing regime of the Islamic Republic,” said Mustafa Hijri, current secretary general of the KDPI.
