Celebrating Dr. Ghassemlou’s Work and Achievements

In 1989 when ARG [Dr Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou] decided to go and meet his nemesis in Vienna, he may have been reckless. He may have made the controversial decision to go anyway, but he knew the risks because he had been publicly warned 10 years before that he was being condemned to death, while simply watching television.

On Iranian television that day – August 19, 1979 – none other than the Ayatollah Khomeini had come to the opening session of the Constitutional Council of Experts in Tehran. This Council was going to design a Constitution for the new Islamic Republic.

Imagine the scene the television camera is broadcasting: The hall is full of venerable ulemas, their heads covered with turbans and their faces somber as they listen to the Imam.

Khomeini at the podium, with his thick eyebrows, is speaking in his soft monotonous voice; a tone he also used to express great anger.

Ghassemlou speaking to a crowd following the revolution of 1979
A few days earlier, armed Kurds had defeated his troops in Iranian Kurdistan. Irate, Khomeini threatened the army with punishment and declared himself Commander in Chief of the armed forces.

Looking at the silent audience, he said: “Ghassemlou is the culprit. The KDPI is a nest of saboteurs and corrupt people. The party is banned. And Ghassemlou must be punished.

Without raising his voice, he asked: “Is Ghassemlou here?”

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This  tribute was originally presented at the House of Lords in London in 2008 on Dr. Ghassemlou’s anniversary.

Carol Prunhuber is the author of The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan (iUniverse, 2009), which has been published in Spanish, Turkish and Kurdish. Through Gamma TV, Prunhuber traveled to Iranian Kurdistan in 1985 to film the struggle of the Kurds in Iran. She currently writes for the Venezuelan journal El Nacional and travels extensively speaking on the Kurdish issue.