WASHINGTON DC – Iranian media reported last week that Gholamreza Hassani, a controversial cleric reputedly behind a bloody 1979 massacre of Kurds in the village of Qarna, has been removed from his position as the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hassani, who was a preacher and Khamenei’s representative in the city of Urmia, is a controversial figure who has survived several attempts on his life. In August 1981, he was severely wounded in an assassination attempt and flown to Ireland for treatment.
Hassani, 86, led many fights against Iranian Kurdish Peshmargas in the early days of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. He headed a paramilitary group called Javanmardan.
The Qarna massacre caused an outcry against the Iranian government, causing the late Ayatollah Khomeini to promise to bring the perpetrators to justice.
But Hassani stayed in his posts and in 2011 reportedly received the national “Medal of Bravery,” for his dedication in the early days of the revolution and his participation in the Iraq-Iran war.
“Hassani played the main role and was the key element in confronting groups like the Democratic Party of Kurdistan and Komala in the Naghadeh area,” Assadollah Alizadeh, the director of the Cultural Heritage Institution in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, has written.
Hassani’s devotion to the Islamic revolution was such that he tipped off the Iranian army about the hideout of his own son, who was then a member of the outlawed and communist Fedayeen Khalq group.
His son was arrested and subsequently executed. He famously told the New York Times in 2001: "Abraham did not sacrifice his son, but I did. Even today, I don't regret it."
Hassani has been one of the most hard-line voices in Iran, and a subject of political satire among mainstream Iranian reformists.
Hassani in 2002 denounced the "moral depravity" of owning a dog, and called for the arrest of all dog owners and their dogs. He also has said that women who do not observe the Islamic hijab “deserve to die.”
The Mehr News agency published an excerpt of Hassani’s memoir recently, in which he talks about the beginning of the Iranian Revolution, and how Kurds wanted to control their own areas. He said he saw that as a threat and moved to quash Komala and KDPI in the area.
“Army barracks in Mahabad city were considered among the most important,” he wrote. “It was responsible for arming and storing ammunition for three army divisions. It had many types of canons, tanks and ammunition. I saw that Ezodin Hosseini and Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou were trying to control it, but we thought if the Kurds get their hands on those weapons we would be arming them against ourselves.”
