Pan-Iranist Party - History

History

In 1951, Mohsen Pezeshkpour and Dariush Forouhar came to a disagreement as to how the party should operate, and a division occurred. The Pezeskpour faction, which retained the party name, believed in working within the system of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Forouhar faction, which adopted a new name, Mellat Iran (Nation of Iran Party), believed in working against the system. Mellat Iran was far more fervently nationalist than the former party, and strongly supported and was allied with the national movement of Mohammad Mossadegh, who had founded the National Front of Iran (Jebhe Melli) with other Iranian nationalist leaders.

After the British-American sponsored coup d'etat against Mossadegh, the Shah assumed dictatorial powers and outlawed almost all political groups, including Mellat Iran and the National Front. The Pan-Iranist Party soon became the official opposition in the Majlis, with Pezeshkpour as Speaker. However, in reality, the party had very little political power and influence and its position was primarily intended to be symbolic. Beginning in the late 1960s, under the government of Amir Abbas Hoveyda, Iran mostly became a one-party dictatorship under the Imperial Resurrection Party (Rastakhiz).

Pezeshkpour remained active in the Majli, and spoke out against the separation of Bahrain from Iran, which Mellat Iran and many other Iranians also opposed. This opposition failed, and Bahrain separated, which resulted in the entire Persian population of Bahrain, as well as a large number of Bahraini Iranian Arabs who wished to remain with Iran, being forced to leave. Most settled in the Khuzestan province, where the Pan-Iranist Party soon began to enjoy much popularity and support. Pezeshkpour established a residence in the city of Khorramshahr, which at the time was home to some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Iran, and which also became his base of operations. In Khuzestan the party was for the first time able to become a dominant influence, whereas in the rest of Iran, the party continued to have very little effect.

With the onset of revolution in 1978, Pezeshkpour and other politicians who had been allied with the Shah fled the country into exile Mohammad Reza Ameli Tehrani, a co-founder of the party, was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court, and subsequently executed in May 1979. Nationalist movements such as Mellat Iran and the National Front, which had been opposed to the Shah, remained in the country and played a crucial role in the revolutionary provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which eventually saw the rise to power of Khomeini to the position of Supreme Leader after the collapse of the provisional government, all nationalist groups, as well as socialist and communist movements such as the Tudeh Party, were banned.

In the early 1990s, Pezeshkpour wrote a letter of apology to the new Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, stating that he wished to return to Iran and promised to stay out of politics for good. Khamenei accepted the apology and allowed Pezeshkpour to return, on the condition that he not resume his previous political activities. However, sometime afterwards Pezeshkpour became active in politics once again and reestablished the Pan-Iranist Party in Iran. He reformed the party structure and abandoned much of the old organizational ideology which Forouhar had opposed and which had originally led to the division. However, the Pan-Iranist Party and Mellat Iran did not reconcile and continued to function as separate organizations.

In the wake of the student demonstrations of 1999, many members of the Pan-Iranist Party were arrested and nine members of the party leadership, including Pezeshkpour himself, were summoned to the Islamic Revolutionary Court. The charges made against them included distribution of anti-government propaganda in the official party newspaper, National Sovereignty.

In the summer of 2004, an attempt by a motorist, allegedly an undercover operative of the Ministry of Intelligence, on the life of Mohsen Pezeshkpour failed in front of his residence in Tehran.

On August 27, 2009, Hossein Shahriari, a veteran member of the Supreme Council of Pan Iranist Party, was arrested and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for “propaganda against the regime, and being a member of the Pan Iranist Party” by the Revolutionary Court in Karaj.