Ezzatollah Sahabi (9 May 1930 – 31 May 2011) was an Iranian politician and journalist. He was a

parliament member A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often ...

from 1980 to 1984.

Early life

Sahabi was born on 9 May 1930 in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. His father,

Yadollah Sahabi Yadollah Sahabi (25 February 1905 – 12 April 2002) was a prominent Iranian scholar, writer, reformist and politician. A close associate of Mohammad Mosaddegh and Mehdi Bazargan, Sahabi was an active campaigner for the nationalization of the Ira ...

, was an influential figure in the

1979 Iranian revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

. His brother,

Fereydun Sahabi Fereydun Sahabi ( fa, فریدون سحابی) (born in 1937 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian academic, writer, translator, and social activist. He was the first president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the second in the administrat ...

, was the first president of the

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is the main Iranian government agency responsible for operating nuclear energy and nuclear fuel cycle installations in Iran. AEOI is the primary organization responsible for nuclear technology researc ...

and the second in the administration of

President of Iran The president of Iran ( fa, رئیس‌جمهور ایران, Rayis Jomhur-e Irān) is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The president is the second highest-ranking official of Iran after the Supreme Leader. The president i ...

. He studied mechanical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering

Tehran University The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...

Political career

He was appointed as a member of

Council of Islamic Revolution The Council of the Islamic Revolution ( fa, شورای انقلاب اسلامی, Šūrā-ye enqelāb-e eslāmī) was a group formed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to manage the Iranian Revolution on 10 January 1979, shortly before he returned ...

Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...

on 12 February 1979.

Mehdi Bazargan Mehdi Bazargan ( fa, مهدی بازرگان; 1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995) was an Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government. He was appointed prime minister in February 1979 by Ay ...

, then

Prime Minister of Iran The Prime Minister of Iran was a political post that had existed in Iran (Persia) during much of the 20th century. It began in 1906 during the Qajar dynasty and into the start of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1923 and into the 1979 Iranian Revolution ...

, named Sahabi as Head of National Budget Center. He was elected as a member of Parliament in election of 1980. In later years Sahabi was managing editor of the journal ''

Iran-e Farda ''Iran-e-Farda'' ( fa, ایران فردا, Īrān-i fardā, lit=Tomorrow's Iran) is an Iranian nationalist-religious periodical publication printed in magazine-format and published digitally that focuses on current sociopolitical affairs of Iran ...

'' (''The Iran of Tomorrow''), which was banned by the Islamic government, and participated in the 2000

'Iran After the Elections' Conference Iran After the Parliamentary Elections: The Dynamic of Reforms in the Islamic Republic (german: Iran nach den Parlamentswahlen: Die Reformdynamik in der Islamischen Republik; commonly known as the Berlin Conference in Iran) was a three-day confer ...

held in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, for which he was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment. He was well known as the leader of the Iran's

Nationalist-Religious The Religious-Nationalists (plural form in fa, ملّی‌مذهبی‌ها, Melli-Mazhabi ha, lit=The Nationalist-Religious Ones) or the National-Religious ( fa, ملّی‌مذهبی, Melli-Mazhabi as an adjective) are terms referring to a pol ...

political alliance. Sahabi spent a total of 15 years in prison both before and after the

1979 Islamic revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

.Britain asks Iran to investigate death of women's rights activist Haleh Sahabi
Saeed Kamali Dehghan , guardian.co.uk, , 2 June 2011

Personal life

Sahabi was married to Zarrindokht Ataei, whose maternal uncle was

. They had a son and a daughter. In April 2011, he was hospitalized in Persian Hospital. On 1 May 2011, Sahabi went into a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

after a stroke. On 31 May 2011, he died at age 81 in Modarres Hospital and his funeral was held the next day.

Funeral

Sahabi's funeral was reportedly marred by the removal of his body by plain clothes authorities, the death of his daughter,

Haleh Sahabi Haleh Sahabi (4 February 1958 – 1 June 2011) was an Iranian humanitarian and democracy activist. She was the daughter of former Iranian MP and veteran opposition figure Ezzatollah Sahabi, and the granddaughter of Yadollah Sahabi. She died at h ...

, from cardiac arrest after being beaten by the plain clothes for holding a photograph of her father. Also the plain clothes heated and arrest of several mourners. According to an unnamed journalist present at the funeral, a "large group" of plainclothes and security forces present at the ceremony "beat a number of mourners", including Haleh Sahabi.Daughter of Deceased Dissident Dies Following Attack During Father’s Burial
1 June 2011

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran The Center for Human Rights in Iran (formerly the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran; ICHRI) is an American non-government organization that aims to promote human rights in Iran. The group started in late 2007 when several human right ...

. Haleh Sahabi reportedly collapsed after trying to stop authorities from removing her father's body. According to Haleh's uncle, the woman died due to "the beating given to her, (which) were severe". However, her son Shamekhi was forced to collaborate with the government by stating that his mother died "not due to beatings but because of a cardiac arrest".Iran: Haleh Sahabi dies at funeral of Ezatollah Sahabi
By Mohsen Asgari, bbc.co.uk 1 June 2011. Mourners reportedly arrested at the funeral include

Habibollah Peyman Habibollah Peyman ( fa, حبیب‌الله پیمان; born 1935) is an Iranian politician. He is the founder and the leader of an Islamist Socialist political party, named ''Jonbesh Moslamanan Mobarez'', which is banned by the religious governm ...

, a member of the

Freedom Movement of Iran The Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI) or Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI; fa, نهضت آزادی ايران, Nahżat-e āzādi-e Irān) is an Iranian pro-democracy political organization founded in 1961, by members describing themselves as "Muslim ...

, political activist Hamid Ahrari, and Hamed Montazeri, the grandson of the late dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah

Hossein Ali Montazeri Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri ( fa, حسینعلی منتظری‎ ; 24 September 1922 – 19 December 2009) was an Iranian Shia Islamic theologian, Islamic democracy advocate, writer and human rights activist. He was one of the leade ...

Fars news agency The Fars News Agency is a news agency in Iran managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an armed wing loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While it describes itself as "Iran's leading independent news agency", it is widely descr ...

denied there had been any clash with police and accused the opposition movement of seeking to politicise the incident.Iranian activist dies at father's funeral
Saeed Kamali Dehghan , guardian.co.uk , 1 June 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sahabi, Ezzatollah 1930 births 2011 deaths Deputies of Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat and Eslamshahr Iranian religious-nationalists Islamic democracy activists University of Tehran alumni People from Tehran Members of the 1st Islamic Consultative Assembly Freedom Movement of Iran MPs Council of the Islamic Revolution members Members of the Assembly of Experts for Constitution Members of the Association for Defense of Freedom and the Sovereignty of the Iranian Nation

Early life

Political career

Personal life

Funeral

See also

References