Daughter Says Iranian Filmmaker Did Not Commit Suicide As Claimed
Veteran Iranian filmmaker Kyumars Pour-Ahmad did not commit suicide as the Iranian government has claimed, her daughter has said in an interview this weekend.
Veteran Iranian filmmaker Kyumars Pour-Ahmad did not commit suicide as the Iranian government has claimed, her daughter has said in an interview this weekend.
Initially, it had been reported in April last year that Pour-Ahmad died from heart failure, but soon after, officials announced the 74-year-old had taken his own life.
Mehdi Fallahmiri, the prosecutor in Gilan Province, who at first dispatched a murder investigation team to inquire about Pour-Ahmad's death, ruled the death was suicide. However, he later said "further investigation" is needed. But there hasn't been an update since last year.
Turan Pour-Ahmad, the director's sister, wrote in an Instagram post on the first anniversary of his death in early April, "First they tortured my brother, then they hanged his dead body."
Later on, Pegah Pour-Ahmad, the daughter of the director and screenwriter, said in an interview with Etemad newspaper on Saturday: "What my aunt said is true. But we won't discuss the case details until the right time comes. My father knew what they were going to do to him. To say that he killed himself is not true."
Last year, Mehdi Kouhian, a lawyer involved in the legal cases of artists detained during the nationwide protests which began in 2022, warned that the unrest and subsequent crackdowns on the cultural community would have a terrible impact on Pour-Ahmad's fate.
Just days before his death, Pour-Ahmad publicly appealed to the community of artists, asking that they help those who were being persecuted by the government by providing secure therapy services.
Pour-Ahmad's death had already been labeled as "government murder." Journalist Noushabeh Amiri, who is now in Europe, tweeted: “Pour-Ahmad was killed by the filthy Islamic Republic, yes, killed.”
In the protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, more than 550 protesters were killed by security forces. Artists who publicly supported the protesters were arrested and given the likes of travel bans, property confiscations and pay and bank account freezes.
The crackdown began on April 13 with the return of the infamous morality patrols to the streets. The extensive violence including sexual harassment against women has since been widely criticized by some hardliners and the media in Iran, including those close to Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, as well as some religious Iranians who are supportive of enforcement of hijab rules and Khamenei’s positions in general.
On April 19, a tweet from Mehdi Fazaeli, deputy chief of the office overseeing the publication of Khamenei’s speeches and writings, further escalated controversies surrounding hijab enforcement methods—not the hijab principle—signaled Khamenei’s potential displeasure with the excessive and harsh enforcement f hijab.
In his tweet, Fazaeli first quoted Khamenei’s April 2023 famous edict about hijab last year and added in a note that “certain officials have recently been admonished [by the Supreme Leader] for their out of the ordinary actions [in enforcement of hijab].”
Fazaeli came under an avalanche of attacks from the ultra-conservative Paydari Party members and their allies, in media and social media, notably the ultra-hardliner chief editor of Kayhan daily, Hossein Shariatmadari, who is an appointee of the Supreme Leader. They accused Fazaeli of lying and misrepresenting Khamenei’s position with his tweet, and even being an enemy “infiltrator” in his office.
The Paydari Party itself is positioned at the extreme end of the fundamentalist camp in the Islamic Republic and other ultra-hardliners often refer to them as “super-revolutionaries”.
Interestingly, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) linked Javan newspaper rose to Fazeli’s defense in an editorial Monday and criticized Shariatmadari for fanning the flames of a perceived “dichotomy” between Khamenei and his office. The editorial suggested that the Supreme Leader’s own authority is being challenged with ulterior motives “not to be discussed now”.
The party has also found allies in what is being referred to in Iranian political circles as the Mashhad Circle, including President Raisi’s influential and notorious father-in-law, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, who expresses views very similar to those of Paydari. Alamolhoda, the most prominent figure of the Mashhad Circle, represents Khamenei in Khorasan-e Razavi Province and is the custodian of the shrine of the eighth Shia imam, Imam Reza.
In very veiled terms, the critics of the Paydari and its associates have hinted that the apparent rebellion of the Paydari against Khamenei, or at least his son Masoud and his associates, may be a plot to place Raisi on the leadership throne when Khamenei dies.
“There is a lot of jostling going on behind the scenes and only muffled noises are heard outside these rooms. The Raisi circle have neutralized Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and will eventually push aside the former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and his circle too,” a political analyst who requested anonymity told Iran International.
The hijab crackdown is spearheaded by the far-right Paydari Party and its allies in the government of President Raisi including the Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, Police Chief Ahmadreza Radan, and Meysam Nili-Ahmadabadi, an advisor to the Minister of Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaili.
Nili-Ahmadabadi, a member of the Paydari Party and brother to Raisi’s son-in-law Meghdad, is a shadowy figure with much influence in many government and state bodies including the state broadcaster (IRIB) and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution where he heads the Hijab and Chastity taskforce.
Nili-Ahmadabadi is also the managing director of Raja News, the unofficial mouthpiece of Paydari Party and the late Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s followers. He has close ties to security forces and maddahs (religious eulogists) with far-right political leanings.
The “super revolutionaries” were not satisfied even when the X account of Khamenei’s official website, khamenei.ir, retweeted Fazaeli’s tweet to support him. The hardliners continued their criticism even though Khamenei’s social media accounts are overseen by his youngest son, the shadowy Masoud Khamenei. This can be interpreted as a challenge by some hardliners to Khamenei’s own son before an impending scramble for succession.
Fazaeli’s critics, including Shariatmadari, insist that they need to hear the criticism from the “Supreme Leader’s own lips”.
“We emulate Mr Khamenei, not Khamenei.ir,” a tweet in response to Fazaeli said, which is being widely quoted as evidence of defiance by ultra-hardliners and their refusal to acknowledge the authority of Khamenei.ir and its social media accounts.
The Paydari and their allies are also being referred to by other hardliners and conservatives on social media as Khavarij (Kharijites), the first sect of Islam who rebelled against Khamenei’s namesake, the fourth Caliph and the first of Shia Imams, Ali ibn Abi Talib.
“The Khavarij are sharpening their swords and smearing them with poison,” Ghorbanali Salavatian, a former IRGC commander, tweeted. This referred to Ali’s assassination with a poison-coated sword by a member of the sect in 661 AD.
In an editorial for the reformist Etemad newspaper on Monday, prominent commentator Abbas Abdi referred to the complicated ideological and political background of ultra-hardliner groups who he said have an apocalyptic ideology and a cult-like organization.
Abdi contended that the principal characteristic of the most radical group of ultra-hardliners is “power mongering” and that they have been ousting all other ultra-hardliners from centers of power.
Many are also pointing out the similarity of the behavior and stances of the Paydari circle with those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in 2011 scornfully quit work for eleven days when Khamenei reinstated an interior minister, Heydar Moslehi, who he had fired.
Henceforth Ahmadinejad and his supporters came to be referred to as the “deviant current” in the vernacular of Khamenei loyalists.
“The real question is whether IRGC’s top echelon would only watch the gladiators in the arena now and wait to step in when the day comes or take action,” Abdi added.
Rallies are being held in several European, US, and Canadian cities, including London, Bonn, The Hague, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Copenhagen, Montreal, and Washington, to urge their governments to halt the execution.
Protests are also planned for the weekend in Melbourne, Sydney, Vancouver, Vienna, Prague, and Port Douglas.
"We are here to get the international community to put pressure on Iran to stop Toomaj's execution," a protester in Berlin told Iran International on Friday.
A group of Iranians in Washington DC are staging a sit-down strike. "Within 24 hours of Toomaj's death sentence being announced, we started a strike in Washington, and many people joined us despite it being during work hours. We plan to continue protesting over the weekend," Siamak Aram, a protester and political analyst, told Iran International on Friday.
Toomaj Salehi's death sentence by the Revolutionary Court of Isfahan has been criticized widely domestically and internationally since his lawyer announced the verdict on Wednesday.
A 2021 single by Toomaj Salehi, Rat Hole, broke the underground Iranian rap scene. In the song, he attacked Iranians outside and inside Iran who chose to support the regime or did not use their platforms to enhance or relay the voices of struggling and dissenting Iranians.
He became a household name and a symbol of heroic resistance when he joined protesters in 2022 that erupted over the death of Mahsa Amini, fatally injured in police custody for wearing an "improper" hijab.
Toomaj Salehi was initially arrested in 2022, when the intelligence ministry in Isfahan province violently arrested him again for his artistic activities in support of the anti-government movement. He was tortured severely and forced to make televised "confessions" while in custody.
After avoiding a death sentence due to a Supreme Court ruling, he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in July 2023.
Salehi's lawyer said that the Revolutionary Court of Isfahan later issued new charges in addition to those he had previously been cleared of.
The defense team for Toomaj Salehi has 20 days to file an appeal against the ruling - and they will, according to his lawyer, Amir Raesian.
Mahsa Amini's mother, the icon of the nationwide protests during which more than 550 people were killed, also condemned the outspoken rapper’s harsh sentence on Thursday.
“Let Toomaj breathe so that his mother and the mothers of my land don't die,” she said.
On Thursday, Amnesty International also issued the following statement: “Iranian authorities must quash Toomaj Salehi’s conviction and death sentence and release him immediately.”
In videos circulating on the Internet, posters of him are seen on the walls and highways of Iran. There were also reports from Tehran of night-time chants against the regime, as well as youngsters writing slogans on city walls in support of the increasingly popular artist.
