Assassination, in French, means terror and intimidation. In Dehkhoda Dictionary it is stated: “Assassination is derived from Terreur and means political murder by weapons and has become common in Persian, and contemporary Tazians use the word “Ehrar” instead of “Assassination”. In French, this word means fear and terror, and the rule of terror is the fundamental rule of revolutionary government, which was established after the fall of the Girondins (from May 31, 1793 to 1794) in France and included numerous political executions. In politics, the violent and illegal actions of governments to suppress their opponents and intimidate them are called assassination, and the actions of militant groups that use violent and terrifying methods to achieve their political goals are also called assassination.

Assassination or political murder is a type of killing that is primarily carried out for political or ideological purposes. The victim is someone with a position, fame, or political interests, or is targeted for insulting a moral belief such as a religion. Assassination, which is mostly referred to as political murder in Persian, has fundamental and significant differences from terrorism. Terrorism, which in Persian is also known as horrorism or scaremongering, refers to any action or threat intended to scare or harm citizens, government, groups, or political figures. A terrorist or assassin is an individual or group that follows the ideology of assassination or terrorism. Terrorists usually resort to killing and assassination of non-political people in order to promote their ideology or retaliate against their enemy country, using fear and terror to achieve their goals. Tyrannical killings and other forms of assassination, while often carried out within the framework of terrorism, have important differences from political murder. The concept of the word assassination is a major source

Assassination for political purposes has had many supporters throughout history. The Roman orator Cicero compared killing those who were seen as human-faced monsters to cutting off the limbs of a decaying body, seeing it as a way to prevent the spread of corruption in the collective body of humanity, society. The idea of tyrannicide later became linked with the theory of popular legitimacy. Supporters of assassination argued that the legitimacy of government stems from a contract made with the people, and when the terms of the contract are violated, it also provides grounds for removing the rulers.

Assassination is a method used by governments to suppress and intimidate opponents through illegal arrests, torture, execution, and other forms of unlawful harassment by political, secret, or extremist police forces. It can also refer to the tactics of right or left-wing groups who use violence, murder, and destruction to overthrow or intimidate the government. The anarchist revolutionary method (known as nihilistic anarchism) and some other revolutionary groups in Tsarist Russia also used assassination. In this sense, assassination also refers to political killings, and those who engage in political killings are called assassins (terrorists).

During the period of the French Revolution, from May 1793 to July 1794, it is known as the “Reign of Terror” because thousands of people were executed by guillotine. In Iran, especially after the Constitutional Revolution, several groups of left and right-wing terrorists have emerged who have made political assassinations their method.

In the history of Iran and the Islamic East, there is a sect known as the Ismailis or followers of Hasan Sabbah, who have used assassination as a permanent method. Their terrifying assassinations, including those of the Crusaders, have spread fear among all, and they are still known in European languages as the “Assassins” (apparently, a distortion of their original name, the Hashashins), meaning killers.

Islamic Republic and Terrorism.

Since 1979, the official authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly individuals within the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence, have been linked to at least 162 extrajudicial killings of political opponents around the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran has killed its opponents outside the country, with perhaps the most well-known being Shapour Bakhtiar, the last Prime Minister of the Pahlavi era, in Paris. On August 8, 1991, the bodies of Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar, former Prime Minister of Iran, and his secretary Soroush Katibeh were found murdered at their residence outside Paris, France. Dr. Bakhtiar, as the leader of a major symbol of unity for anti-Islamic Republic groups, had until then managed to escape two serious assassination attempts. He had been sentenced to death in absentia by a revolutionary court.

Victims of terrorist attacks attributed to the revolutionary government of Iran have been targeted in countries such as the United States, France, Iraq, and Pakistan. Among the casualties, the names of non-Iranian citizens are also noticeable. Paul Klebnikov, an American writer for Forbes magazine who had written articles under the title “Iran’s Millionaire Mullahs,” was shot and killed when leaving the magazine’s office in Moscow.

The first successful political assassination outside of Iran that can be attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran was the murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, the former Shah’s nephew, in Paris in December 1979. This assassination took place just one month after the pro-National Front government, led by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, was forced to step down and was replaced by the Revolutionary Council, which was dominated by fundamentalist clerics. The last political assassination outside of Iran and Iraq that can be directly linked to the Islamic Republic was the killing of Dr. Reza Mazloommanesh, the deputy head of the Forough-e Javidan organization, in Paris in April 1996.

Gholamali Oveisi and his brother Hossein Oveisi were also assassinated by agents of the Islamic Republic in Paris. Dr. Abdulrahman Qasemloo (Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan), Abdullah Ghaderi Azar (representative of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in Europe), and Mr. Fazil Rasul, an Iraqi Kurd who acted as a mediator, were killed during a secret meeting with representatives of the Iranian government in an apartment in Vienna. In the Mykonos assassination, four Kurdish activists opposed to the Islamic Republic (Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan, Nouri Dehkordi, and Sadegh Sharafkandi) were killed in Berlin. The German prosecutor general accused Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former intelligence minister Ali

In one of the most controversial murders attributed to the Islamic Republic, the brother of contemporary Iranian poet, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, was killed in his residence in the city of Bon by knife wounds. Farrokhzad was a poet, radio and television programmer, singer, TV and radio host, lyricist, composer, actor, and Iranian political activist who was critical of the Islamic Republic government.

It must be said that the killings that occurred between the years 1358 and 1375 violated some of the most fundamental principles of international human rights laws. These killings were planned, executed, and coordinated at the highest levels of political and religious organizations in Iran by senior officials of the regime, many of whom still hold positions of influence today. As Judge Fritz Kobsch stated in the final session of the Mykonos trial in Germany:

The evidence clearly shows that the rulers of Iran not only endorse cross-border killings and reward the perpetrators, but they themselves plan and carry out such killings against people who are deemed undesirable for purely political reasons. In order to maintain their power, they are willing to silence their political opponents.

• In the written text, the words “ترورگری” and “وحشت گرایی” have been used as the Persian equivalents of the word “terrorism”, and the word “ترورگر” has been used as the equivalent of the word “terrorist”.

Sources.

I’m sorry, there is no Farsi text provided for translation. Please provide the text you would like translated.

Political Encyclopedia, written by Dariush Ashouri.

There is no refuge (Global Operation of Assassination of the Islamic Republic of Iran), report published by the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center.

Persian Wikipedia website.