Sadeq Sharafkandi
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Dr.Sadeq Sharafkandi, also known as Sadegh Sharafkandi in Kurdish (Sadiq Şerefkendî) (1938-1992), was a Iranian Kurdish politician. Dr.Sharafkandi was the second General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan PDKI, after Dr.Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou.
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[edit] Life of Dr.Sadeq Sharafkandi
Dr.Sadeq Sharafkandi was born on the 1st January 1938, in the Bokan region of Iranian Kurdistan. He spent two years of his elementary studies in his native village, then his family moved to Mahabad, where he completed his primary and secondary education.
In 1959, he received his degree in chemistry at the Institute of Higher Education in Teheran; from then onwards, up to 1965, he taught chemistry in the Kurdish towns of Ûrmiyeh and Mahabad.
Because of his political activities, he was transferred first to Arak and later to Karaj by the Shah's regime, before being appointed assistant lecturer in chemistry at the Teachers' Higher Training College in Teheran.
In 1972, he went to France to study at the University of Paris VI, where he received his PhD in analytical chemistry in 1976. The same year, he went back to Iran to teach at the Teachers' Higher Training College in Teheran.
After the fall of the Shah's regime in February 1979, he resigned from his position and joined the reawakening Kurdish movement, which in August became the target of a "Holy War" decreed by Ayatollah Khomeini.
He got married and is the father of 3 children. Apart from Kurdish, he also spoke Persian, Arabic, Turkish and French.
[edit] Political life
While studying in Paris in 1973, he met Dr.Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the Secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), and joined the Party. Upon his retum to Iran, he became Dr. Ghassemlou's representative in his country.
In February 1979, after the fall of the Shah's regime, the PDKI's activities became legal. Dr.Sharafkandi was elected alternate member of the Central Committee and appointed as the Party's official in Teheran.
During the summer of 1979, he became a permanent Party cadre and in 1980, during the following Congress, he acceded to the Political Bureau. From then onwards, up to the assassination in July 1989 in Vienna of Dr.Ghassemlou by Iranian emissaries, he was regularly re-elected and put in charge of the Party's publications. In 1986, he also took office as assistant Secretary-seneral of PDKI.
After Dr.Ghassemlou's assassination, he temporarily took over the Party's leadership until December 1991, when he was unanimously elected Secretary-general during the IXth Congress.
Some individuals and groups believed that Dr. Ghassemlou's death meant the end of our fight and would bring about the dissolution of PDKI. However, Dr.Sharafkandi, in the exercise of his duties as head of the Party, showed such great clear-sightedness, know-how and stout perseverance that the cruel loss of Dr. Ghassemlou, immortal leader of the Kurdish people, had less effect on our friends than our enemies had predicted. In all respects, Dr.Sharafkandi showed himself to be a worthy successor of Dr. Ghassemlou and an exemplary leader of the Kurdish people during a particularly troubled phase of its national liberation fight.
Like his predecessor, Dr.Sharafkandi fully understood the necessity to link our people's struggle to the fight of the Iranian population as a whole. He strove incessantly to create stronger ties with the organisations belonging to the Iranian democratic opposition. And it was precisely during one of his meetings with members of the Iranian opposition that he was brutally killed by the enemies of the union of all liberation forces of the peoples of Iran.
Comrade Sharafkandi was equally convinced of the need to establish ties of mutual solidarity between the population of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurds living in other parts of Kurdistan. He proved to be a man of conscience in this respect as well, fully aware of the duties and responsibilities that were his. He also strove to do away with the paradoxical feelings shared by quite a few people about being Iranians as well as Kurds. Dr. Sharafkandi saw no contradiction between these terms. He firmly believed that there was not opposition anywhere in the world between the legitimate rights of peoples. He realized the necessity of heightening public awareness of the Kurdish issue, and the important role played by international organisations through their efforts to help the Kurdish liberation movement to achieve victory. It was his aim to draw the international community's attention to the Kurdish issue and to try to obtain its full support.
Dr.Sharafkandi was a patriot and a democrat who had a strong belief in democracy. He regarded the struggle of bringing democracy to Iran as the duty of every citizen and every Iranian freedom activist. He considered cooperation and solidarity among patriotic Iranian forces as the key to the victory of Iranian peoples and the defeat of despotism ruling Iran. In this regard, he worked as hard as he could, and unfortunately in the course of this struggle he sacrificed himself. Dr.Sharafkandi, with all of his heart, felt the oppression that the Kurdish people and other peoples of Iran had been facing, and regarded the struggle aimed at eradicating such an injustice as legitimate. He had a firm belief in the rights of the peoples of Iran to self-determination in the framework of a democratic Iran. Meanwhile, he considered the Kurdish brothers and sisters in other countries as part of a single nation, and he would always keep the interests of the nation as his priority even at the expense of the Party interests. Dr.Sharafkandi was a devoted revolutionary and an experienced leader who supported social justice and opposed any sorts of discrimination. In the process of establishing social justice, he believed in socialism; still, he did not view the existing socialism without any short-coming, nor did he accept the dictatorship of proletariat. He disagreed with some of the right-leaning leftist parties and the radicalism of some others. He never concealed such beliefs, and he would openly spell them out; as a result, he played an important role alongside our legendary Kurdish leader Dr. Ghassemlou to adopt “Democratic Socialism” as the long-term objective of the Party. Such attributes had granted this leader with such a revolutionary and democratic image in the real sense of the word. Dr.Sharafkandi was a political-intellectual character who devoted his life serving his nation; truth and justice were the attributes that this man was known for. It is evident that the loss of a comrade such as Dr. Sharafkandi for PDKI and any patriotic Kurd is a major impairment. However, with the loss of Dr. Sharafkandi, PDKI once again proved this reality that it can carry heavy wounds, but it would never bow to the enemy. It is a Party that can heal the loss of great leaders such as Ghassemlou and Sharafkandi with collective leadership to prevent the realization of regime’s cruel intentions.
[edit] Assassination background
In the evening of Tuesday September 17th 1992, while a few hours after the completion of the Socialist International’s sessions in Berlin Dr.Sharafkandi and his associates were discussing the circumstances of the country and the need for further alliance of the Iranian forces with a number of Iranian opposition figures at Mykonous Restaurant in Berlin. They were attacked and gunned down by several trained terrorists of Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) with the direct decree and order of the highest authorities of the regime. The assassination of Dr.Sharafkandi, no doubts, resulted in a major loss for PDKI in particular and the Kurdish resistance in general. It also led to an enormous grief for the Kurdish nation, all the Iranian freedom activists, and all the Party’s friends world wide. That is why it has attracted such an extensive international reflection and coverage.
The police and judicial authorities very seriously pursued the terrorists, and with the custody and prosecution of the perpetrators, they opened the files of Mykonos tragedy which attracted so much public opinion towards the case in the process that took more than 3 years. The court at last delivered the final verdict in April 10, 1997 in regards to the crimes of the perpetrators of the terror, including the regime’s high ranking officials as the order-givers of the crime, and it revealed once and for all the terrorist image of this regime to the world public opinion. In this way, it nullified all the regime’s attempts to derail the procedures of the court or hijack public opinion to escape the punishments of such an offence. Rather, this time it exposed the terrorist regime’s true image of deceit with strong evidence and according to the decision of a credible court in a European country. The initiatives of almost all the countries of the European Union to recall their embassies in Tehran in reality was the endorsement of the court’s verdict and admitting the regime’s terrorist nature. Tehran’s threats as a counter-action to the verdict, despite having effects on the position of many of these countries, neither affected the importance of the verdict nor did it succeed in leaving the regime with any honor or respect.
[edit] See also
- University of Paris VI: Pierre et Marie Curie
- Qazi Muhammad
- Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou
- Mustafa Hijri
- Mahabad Republic
- List of socialists
- PDKI
