At 5 a.m. today, 21 people were shot in Tehran by sentence of the previous day’s revolutionary court — the largest mass-execution since the Iranian Revolution three months prior. “Revolutionary courts consolidate the gains of the revolution,” exulted an official newspaper.
While the bulk of this morning’s condemned were lower-ranking Savak personnel or former policemen, several distinct VIPs were also shot along with them.
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- Gholam Riza Kianpour, the Shah’s former Minister of Justice. He had unwisely turned himself in.
- Mohammad Riza Ameli Tehrani, a nationalist intellectual and the Shan’s former Minister of Information.
- Javid Sa’iid, a doctor and the former speaker of Iran’s parliament during the short-lived (and now officially proscribed) transitional government just before the February revolution.
- Brigadier General Ali Fathi, convicted of killing anti-government protesters during the yearlong struggle preceding the revolution.
The names of all 21 people executed this date can be perused by date-searching the Iran Human Rights Memorial database.
On this day..
- 1811: Arthur William Hodge, brutal slaveowner
- 1643: Philippe Giroux, former president of the Dijon Parlement
- 1916: Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Con Colbert, and Sean Heuston
- 1679: La Bosse, Poison Affair culprit
- 1805: Not Bartlett Ambler, possible buggerer
- 1945: Pvt. George Edward Smith, on VE Day
- 1885: Mose Caton, beastly husband
- 2013: Vahid Zare pardoned while hanging
- Daily Double: The Iranian Revolution
- 1788: Archibald Taylor, but not Joseph Taylor
- 1951: Willie McGee
- 1794: Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, father of modern chemistry
- Daily Double: Revolutionary Justice
- 1948: U Saw and the assassins of Aung San
- 1887: Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin's brother