Word: banisadr
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...Mujahedin who are believed to have masterminded the escape of former President Abolhassan Banisadr, whom they supported, after he had been deposed by the government. Banisadr is now thought to be hiding in the Kurdish region in northwestern Iran...
...their cause, just as it occurred in the final years of the Shah's reign. In that sense, the mullahs seem to be playing into their hands. Firing squads-killed more than 50 "counterrevolutionaries" last week; raising to at least 153 the number of people executed since Banisadr was deposed as President on June 22. Jails are so packed that new suspects are no longer detained, just beaten and dumped in alleys. Laments a prominent Tehran lawyer: "Iran has become a horror movie...
Meanwhile, the government is displaying increasing nervousness. Three correspondents of the worldwide news agency Reuters were expelled and their bureau branded "a center of conspiracy against the Islamic revolution," leaving the Italian and French as the only major Western news agencies in Iran. The mullahs also remain wary of Banisadr's lingering influence with the army. Amid rumors of military dismay over the mounting chaos, Khomeini ordered a tough new purge of "deviating elements" among the troops. "Any leniency," he said, "will be like showing mercy to a sharp-toothed tiger...
Opposition to the theocracy desired by the Muslim fundamentalists is currently being led by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Crusaders), a clandestine Islamic socialist party that commands some 100,000 armed urban guerrillas. Supporters of Banisadr, the Mujahedin reacted to the President's ouster by engaging Khomeini's armed zealots, the Hezbollahis (Members of God's Party), in bloody street fighting in Tehran and other cities, killing 25 and wounding several hundred...
Iran's Kurdish minority, which has been relatively quiescent in the past few months, reacted to Banisadr's ouster by staging riots in the city of Mahabad in northwestern Iran. Many of the nation's 4 million Kurds, who have been fighting for autonomy for generations, seem to have joined forces with other opposition groups who are heeding Banisadr's recent admonition to the Iranian people...