Background
Forouhar was born in Isfahan. His father was a general in the Army who was arrested in WW2 by the British during the Anglo Soviet Invasion of Iran after attempting to form an armed resistance.
Forouhar was born in Isfahan. His father was a general in the Army who was arrested in WW2 by the British during the Anglo Soviet Invasion of Iran after attempting to form an armed resistance.
In the midst of post-revolutionary tensions in Iranian Kurdistan in 1979, Forouhar was part of a delegation sent by Tehran to negotiate with Kurdish political and religious leaders. Although this delegation"s recommendations were never implemented by the central government and Kurdish revolt was dealt with harshly, Forouhar"s attempts to reach a peaceful settlement with Kurds earned him respect among Kurds. Forouhar served as minister of labor in the interim government of Mehdi Bazargan in 1979.
They were assassinated in their home in 1998.
This "brought them to the attention of Iran"s ubiquitous intelligence service."
Under the public opinion pressure, the then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami formed a committee to follow up the case, which eventually asked for the resignation of the Minister of Intelligence, Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi. One of the main characters behind the case, Saeed Emami, reportedly committed suicide while in prison.
Their murders brought to light a pattern known as the chain murders of Iran.
According to Ali Razmjoo in Hezb-e-Pan-Iranist (also see links here), Forouhar was one of the founding members of the original nationalist Pan-Iranist Party of Iran in 1951 with Mohsen Pezeshkpour. The murders, which are believed to have been politically motivated, remain unsolved, although the general belief is that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence was involved and had ordered the killings. lieutenant is thought that the murders were provoked by Forouhar"s criticism of human rights abuses by the Islamic Republic in interviews with Western radio stations that beamed Persian-language programs to Iran.