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Abolhassan Banisadr

"Banisadr" redirects here. For the Iranian-American artist, see Ali Banisadr.

Abolhassan Banisadr (Persian: سید ابوالحسن بنی‌صدر; 22 March 1933 – 9 October 2021) was an Iranian politician, writer, and political dissident. He was the first president of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution abolished the monarchy, serving from February 1980 until his impeachment by parliament in June 1981. Prior to his presidency, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Interim Government.

Abolhassan Banisadr
ابوالحسن بنی‌صدر
Official portrait, 1974
1st President of Iran
In office
4 February 1980 – 21 June 1981
Supreme LeaderRuhollah Khomeini
Prime MinisterMohammad-Ali Rajai
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byMohammad-Ali Rajai
Head of Council of the Islamic Revolution
In office
7 February 1980[1] – 20 July 1980
Preceded byMohammad Beheshti[1]
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Acting
In office
12 November 1979 – 29 November 1979
Appointed byCouncil of the Revolution
Preceded byEbrahim Yazdi
Succeeded bySadegh Ghotbzadeh
Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance
In office
17 November 1979 – 10 February 1980
Appointed byCouncil of the Revolution
Preceded byAli Ardalan
Succeeded byHossein Namazi
Member of the Assembly of Experts for Constitution
In office
15 August 1979 – 15 November 1979
ConstituencyTehran Province
Majority1,752,816 (69.4%)
Personal details
Born(1933-03-22)22 March 1933
Hamadan, Imperial State of Persia
Died9 October 2021(2021-10-09) (aged 88)
Paris, France
Political partyIndependent
Other political
affiliations
Spouse
Ozra Hosseini
​
(m. 1961)​
Children3
Alma materUniversity of Tehran
Sorbonne University
Signature
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Following his impeachment, Banisadr fled Iran and found political asylum in France, where he co-founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Banisadr later focused on political writings about his revolutionary activities and his critiques of the Iranian government. He became a critic of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the country's handling of its 2009 elections.

Early life and education

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Banisadr was born on 22 March 1933 in Baghcheh, a small village north of Hamedan.[3] His father, Nasrollah, was a Shia cleric who had originally migrated to the area from Bijar, Kurdistan.[4][5] As a student, Banisadr studied law, theology, and sociology at the University of Tehran.[6] He participated in the anti-Shah student movement during the early 1960s, which led to his being imprisoned twice and wounded during the 1963 uprising.[5][7] Soon after, due to his political activities, Banisadr fled to France, where he studied finance and economics at the Sorbonne.[6][8] He wrote a book on Islamic finance, Eghtesad Tohidi, which roughly translates as "The Economics of Monotheism."[9]

In 1972, Banisadr's father died and it was at the funeral in Iraq where he first became acquainted with Ruhollah Khomeini.[7] He later joined the Iranian resistance group led by Khomeini, becoming one of his most fervent advisors.[5][7] On 1 February 1979, with the end of the Iranian Revolution drawing near, Banisadr returned to the country together with Khomeini.[10]

Career

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With the Interim Government controlling Iran, Banisadr was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance on 4 February 1979.[11] At the direction of Khomeini, he also became a member of the Council of the Islamic Revolution, taking the seat of Mehdi Bazargan, who left to become prime minister.[11] On 12 November 1979, following the Interim Government's dissolution, Banisadr was appointed by the Council to replace Ebrahim Yazdi as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[10] That same month, on 17 November, Banisadr was promoted to Minister of Finance, replacing the outgoing Ali Ardalan.[10][11]

In January 1980, Banisadr registered to become a candidate for Iran's newly formed presidential office. He was not an Islamic cleric; Khomeini, who was by then the Supreme Leader of Iran with a constitutional authority to dismiss politicians, had insisted that members of the clergy not run for positions in the government.[12] On 25 January 1980, Banisadr was elected to a four-year term as president, receiving 78.9 percent of the vote.[13] Inaugural ceremonies took place on 4 February at a hospital where Khomeini was recuperating from a heart ailment.[14]

In August and September 1980, Banisadr survived two helicopter crashes near the Iran–Iraq border.[15] During the Iran–Iraq War, Banisadr was made acting commander-in-chief by Khomeini on 10 June 1981.[16]

 
Banisadr (left) inaugurated as first President of Iran in 1980. Mohammad Beheshti is on the right and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at his back.

Impeachment

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The Majlis (Iranian Parliament) impeached Banisadr in his absence on 21 June 1981,[17] allegedly because of his moves against the clerics in power,[18] in particular Mohammad Beheshti, then head of the judicial system. Khomeini himself appears to have instigated the impeachment, which he signed the next day.[12] According to historian Kenneth Katzman, Banisadr believed the clerics should not directly govern Iran and was perceived as supporting the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).[12] Only one deputy, Salaheddin Bayani, spoke in favor of Banisadr during his impeachment.[19]

Even before Khomeini signed the articles of impeachment, the Revolutionary Guard had seized presidential buildings and imprisoned writers at a newspaper closely tied to Banisadr.[20] Over the next few days, the government executed several of Banisadr's closest friends and advisors, in addition to hundreds of revolutionaries deemed unsympathetic to the regime.[17][20] Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri was among the few people in the government who remained in support of Banisadr, but he was later stripped of his powers.[20]

Banisadr had gone into hiding in Tehran for a few days before his removal, assisted by the MEK.[17][21] There, he attempted to organize an alliance of anti-Khomeini factions to retake power, including the MEK, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Fedaian Organisation (Minority), while eschewing any contact with monarchist exile groups.[21] He met numerous times while hiding with MEK leader Massoud Rajavi to plan an alliance. However, after the execution on 27 July 1981 of prominent MEK member Mohammad Reza Saadati, Banisadr and Rajavi concluded that it was unsafe to remain in Iran.[21]

Flight and exile

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On 29 July 1981, Banisadr and Rajavi were smuggled aboard an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by Colonel Behzad Moezzi.[5] It followed a routine flight plan before deviating out of Iranian groundspace to Turkish airspace and eventually landing in Paris.[17] As a disguise, Banisadr shaved his eyebrows and mustache and dressed in a skirt.[22][23]

Banisadr and Rajavi found political asylum in Paris, conditional on abstaining from anti-Khomeini activities in France.[5] This restriction was effectively ignored after France evacuated its embassy in Tehran.[5] Banisadr, Rajavi, and the Kurdish Democratic Party established the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris in October 1981.[5][21] By 1984, however, Banisadr had fallen out with Rajavi, accusing him of ideologies favoring dictatorship and violence.[10] Furthermore, Banisadr opposed the armed opposition as initiated and sustained by Rajavi and instead sought support for Iran during the war with Iraq.[10]

My Turn to Speak

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In 1991, Banisadr released an English translation of his 1989 text My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S.[24] In the book, Banisadr alleged covert dealings between the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and leaders in Tehran to prolong the Iran hostage crisis before the 1980 United States presidential election.[25] He also claimed that Henry Kissinger plotted to set up a Palestinian state in the Iranian province of Khuzestan and that Zbigniew Brzezinski conspired with Saddam Hussein to plot Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran.[24]

Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post wrote: "The book is not what normally passes for a bestseller. Cobbled together from a series of interviews conducted by French journalist Jean-Charles Deniau, it is never merely direct when it can be enigmatic, never just simple when it can be labyrinthine."[26] In a review for Foreign Affairs, William B. Quandt described the book as "a rambling, self-serving series of reminiscences" and "long on sensational allegations and devoid of documentation that might lend credence to Bani-Sadr's claims."[24] Kirkus Reviews called it "an interesting—though frequently incredible and consistently self-serving-memoir" and said "frequent sensational accusations render his tale an eccentric, implausible commentary on the tragic folly of the Iranian Revolution."[27]

Views

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Banisadr in 2013

In 1980, Banisadr openly criticized the Iran hostage crisis, arguing that the ordeal was isolating Iran from the Third World and forming "a state within a state".[28]

In a 2008 interview with the Voice of America, Banisadr claimed that Khomeini was directly responsible for the violence originating from the Muslim world and that the promises Khomeini made in exile were broken after the revolution.[29] In July 2009, Banisadr publicly denounced the Iranian government's conduct after the disputed presidential election by alleging that "Khamenei ordered the fraud in the presidential elections and the ensuing crackdown on protesters."[30] In addition, Banisadr said the government was "holding on to power solely by means of violence and terror", and accused its leaders of amassing individual wealth to the detriment of other Iranians.[30]

In published articles on the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, Banisadr ascribed the unusually open political climate before the election to the government's great need to prove its legitimacy,[31] which he said was lost.[32] He further stated that the spontaneous uprising had cost the government its political legitimacy, and that Khamenei's threats led to the violent crackdown, which also cost the government its religious legitimacy.[32]

Personal life and death

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Beginning in 1981, Banisadr lived in Versailles, near Paris, in a villa closely guarded by French police.[30][31] Banisadr's daughter, Firouzé, married Massoud Rajavi in Paris following their exile.[5][33][34] They later divorced, and the alliance between him and Rajavi also ended.[5][33]

After a long illness, Banisadr died at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on 9 October 2021, at age 88.[35][36][37] He is buried in Versailles, in the cemetery of Gonards.[38]

Books

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  • Touhid Economics, 1980[39]
  • My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 1991. ISBN 0-08-040563-0. Translation of Le complot des ayatollahs. Paris: La Découverte, 1989[40]
  • Le Coran et le pouvoir: principes fondamentaux du Coran, Imago, 1993[41]
  • Dignity in the 21st Century, Doris Schroeder and Abol-Hassan Banisadr, with translation by Mahmood Delkhasteh and Sarah Amsler[42]
  • Books after 1980[43]

References

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  1. ^ a b Barseghian, Serge (February 2008). "مجادلات دوره مصدق به شورای انقلاب کشیده شد". Shahrvand Weekly (36). Institute for humanities and cultural studies.
  2. ^ Houchang E. Chehabi (1990). Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini. I.B.Tauris. p. 200. ISBN 978-1850431985.
  3. ^ Jessup, John E. (1998). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945-1996. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-313-28112-9.
  4. ^ "پورتال رسمی شهرداری بیجار گروس". shora.bijar.ir.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle; Ali Mohammadi (January 1987). "Post-Revolutionary Iranian Exiles: A Study in Impotence". Third World Quarterly. 9 (1): 108–129. doi:10.1080/01436598708419964. JSTOR 3991849.
  6. ^ a b Kinzer, Stephen (10 October 2021). "Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Former Iranian President, Dies at 88". The New York Times. p. A21. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  7. ^ a b c Rubin, Barry (1980). Paved with Good Intentions (PDF). New York: Penguin Books. p. 308. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2013.
  8. ^ "Banisadr, Iran's first president after 1979 revolution, dies". News Observer. Retrieved 9 October 2021.[permanent dead link‍]
  9. ^ Bekkin, Renat. "Iran: Experimenting with the Islamic Economy". CA&C Press AB. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  10. ^ a b c d e "Abolhasan Bani-Sadr". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  11. ^ a b c Metz, Helen Chapin. "The Revolution" (PDF). Phobos. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  12. ^ a b c Kenneth Katzman (2001). "Iran: The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran". In Albert V. Benliot (ed.). Iran: Outlaw, Outcast, Or Normal Country?. Nova Publishers. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-56072-954-9.
  13. ^ "Banisadr, Iran's First President After the 1979 Revolution, Dies". Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. 9 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  14. ^ "Iran: Abolhassan Bani-sadar Is Sworn In As First President Of Iran. 1980". British Pathe. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  15. ^ "Banisadr, Iran's first president after 1979 revolution, dies". Spectrum Local News. Archived from the original on 9 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  16. ^ Mozaffari, Mahdi (1993). "Changes in the Iranian political system after Khomeini's death". Political Studies. XLI (4): 611–617. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.1993.tb01659.x. S2CID 143804127.
  17. ^ a b c d Sahimi, Mohammad (20 August 2013). "Iran's Bloody Decade of 1980s". Payvand. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  18. ^ "Iranian presidential elections 2013: the essential guide". The Guardian. 13 May 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  19. ^ "Iran Parliament finds Banisadr unfit for office", The New York Times, Reuters, p. 1, 22 June 1981, retrieved 1 September 2021
  20. ^ a b c Schirazi, Asghar, The Constitution of Iran: politics and the state in the Islamic Republic, London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 1997, p.293-4
  21. ^ a b c d Sepehr Zabih (1982). Iran Since the Revolution. Taylor & Francis. pp. 133–136. ISBN 978-0-7099-3000-6.
  22. ^ "Bani-Sadr Flees to Paris For 2nd Exile". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  23. ^ "Bani-Sadr escapes to Paris". UPI. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  24. ^ a b c Quandt, Walter B. (Winter 1991). "My Turn To Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S." Foreign Affairs. 70 (5). Council on Foreign Relations. doi:10.2307/20045078. JSTOR 20045078. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  25. ^ Neil A Lewis (7 May 1991). "Bani-Sadr, in U.S., Renews Charges of 1980 Deal". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
  26. ^ Grove, Lloyd (6 May 1991). "Bani-Sadr Thickens the Plot". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  27. ^ Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr. "My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the US". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
  28. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand (1989). Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. I. B. Tauris. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-85043-077-3.
  29. ^ "Persian TV weekly highlights". Voice of America. 19 February 2008. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  30. ^ a b c "Former Iran president says Khamenei behind election "fraud"". WashingtonTV. 7 July 2009. Archived from the original on 28 July 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
  31. ^ a b Abolhassan Banisadr (3 July 2009). "The Regime Cares Nothing about Human Rights". Die Welt / Qantara. Archived from the original on 20 August 2010. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
  32. ^ a b Bani-Sadr, Abolhassan (31 July 2009). "Iran at the Crossroads". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  33. ^ a b Irani, Bahar (19 February 2011). "Indispensability of Examining Sexual Abuses within the Cult of Rajavi". Habilian Association. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  34. ^ Smith, Craig S. (24 September 2005). "Exiled Iranians Try to Foment Revolution From France". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  35. ^ "ابوالحسن بنی‌صدر درگذشت". BBC News فارسی.
  36. ^ "Family, Iranian state media say Iran's first president, Abolhassan Banisadr, dies in Paris from long illness at age 88". ABC News. 9 October 2021.
  37. ^ "Former Iranian President Bani-Sadr dies in Paris". Reuters. 9 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  38. ^ "Yvelines | la communauté iranienne rend hommage à Abolhassan Bani Sadr à Versailles". 18 October 2021.
  39. ^ "IRAN: EXPERIMENTING WITH THE ISLAMIC ECONOMY". CAC.org. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  40. ^ Qu, William B. (28 January 2009). "My Turn To Speak: Iran, The Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 9 October 2021. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  41. ^ "Le Coran et le pouvoir: Principes fondamentaux du Coran (Hors collection Imago) (French Edition)". AbeBooks. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  42. ^ "banisadr.org - Abolhassan Banisadr: Dignity in the 21st Century". banisadr.org.
  43. ^ "banisadr.org - تالیفات بنی صدر از 1360 به بعد". banisadr.org.
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Political offices
Preceded by
Ali Ardalan
 Minister of Finance of Iran
1979 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran (Acting)
1979 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the Council of Islamic Revolution
1980 		Succeeded by
Position abolished
New title
Position established
 President of Iran
1980–1981 		Succeeded by
Military offices
Vacant
Title last held by
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 		Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces
1980–1981 		Succeeded by
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