The Political Opposition Of Executions - 1618 Words

routine; there were days when more than 100 persons were executed. Amnesty International documented 2,946 executions in the 12 months following Bani Sadr s impeachment, a conservative figure because the authorities did not report all executions. The pace of executions slackened considerably at the end of 1982, partly as a result of a deliberate government decision but primarily because, by then, the back of the armed resistance movement had largely been broken. The radical opposition had, however, eliminated several key clerical leaders, exposed vulnerabilities in the state s security apparatus, and posed the threat, never realized, of sparking a wider opposition movement. The December decree, however, implied no increased tolerance for†¦show more content†¦In February 1983, the government arrested Tudeh leader Nureddin Kianuri, other members of the party Central Committee, and more than 1,000 party members. The party was proscribed, and Kianuri confessed on television to spying for the Soviet Union and to espionage, deceit, and treason. Possibly because of Soviet intervention, none of the leading members of the party was brought to trial or executed, although the leaders remained in prison. Many rank and file members, however, were put to death. By 1983 Bazargan s IFM was the only political group outside the factions of the ruling hierarchy that was permitted any freedom of activity. Even this group was barely tolerated. For example, the party headquarters was attacked in 1983, and two party members were assaulted on the floor of the Majlis. In 1984 Khomeini denounced the Hojjatieh, a fundamentalist religious group that rejected the role assigned to the faqih under the Constitution. The organization, taking this attack as a warning, dissolved itself. For most Iranians the reciprocal obligations and privileges that define relations between kinsfolk from the parent-child bond to more distant ones have been more important than those associated with any other kind of social alignment. Although Bakhtiar won the qualified support of moderate clerics like Shariatmadari, his measures did not win him the support of Khomeini and the main opposition elements, who were now committed to the overthrow of the monarchy and