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
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
political organization founded in 1961, by members describing themselves as "Muslims, Iranians, Constitutionalists and
Mossadeghists".
It is the oldest party still active in Iran
and has been described as a "semi-opposition"
or "
loyal opposition
Loyal opposition in terms of politics, refers to specific political concepts that are related to the opposition parties of a particular political system. In many Westminster-style parliamentary systems of government, the loyal opposition indicate ...
"
party. It has also been described as a "religious nationalist party".
The organization was split to the
National Front (II), its establishment was supported by
Mohammad Mossadegh.
It then applied for the membership in the front with a
platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
advocating national sovereignty, freedom of political activity and expression, social justice under
Islam, respect for Iran's constitution, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
, and the
Charter of the United Nations
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
.
It believes in the
separation of religion and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
, while that political activity should be guided by religious values.
FMI based on a moderate interpretation of Islam. It rejects both royal and clerical dictatorship in favor of political and economic liberalism.
Despite being outlawed by the prevailing government in Iran, the group continues to exist. The organization accepts to comply with the
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran despite its rejection for
Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist
The Guardianship or Governance/''Wilāyat'' of/by an Islamic Jurist/''Faqīh'' ( fa, , Velâyat-e Faqih; ar, وِلاَيَةُ ٱلْفَقِيهِ, Wilāyat al-Faqīh), is a concept in Twelver Shia Islamic law which holds that until the r ...
.
It had not been allowed to run in any
election since 1980
(exempting
2003 local elections in which the
Guardian Council did not vet the candidates). It was also denied membership in the
House of Parties of Iran.
The organization's members have close ties to the
Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists of Iran
The Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists of Iran ( fa, شورای فعالان ملی-مذهبی ایران, Showra-ye Fa'alan-e Melli Mazhabi) or The Coalition of National-Religious Forces of Iran ( fa, ائتلاف نيروهای ملی-م ...
.
1953 Coup d'etat and aftermath
The group originated in the early 1950s, after the
1953 coup d'état against the government of Dr.
Mohammad Mossadeq
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
who was
Prime Minister of Iran from April 1951 to August 1953 (with a very brief interruption in July 1952). That coup brought down Mossadegh and his colleagues from power and reinstalled the
Shah
Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...
as the dominant force in Iranian politics. The newly installed government quickly rounded up Mossadegh's closest supporters, outlawing freedom of expression and cracking down on free political activity. Mossadegh himself was placed before a military court and sentenced to three years in prison. A group of low-ranking leaders from the Mossadegh era quickly formed an underground organization calling itself the
National Resistance Movement
The National Resistance Movement ( sw, Harakati za Upinzani za Kitaifa; abbr. NRM) has been the ruling party in Uganda since 1986.
History
The National Resistance Movement (NRM) was founded as a liberation movement that waged a guerrilla ...
(NRM). It is significant in the context of the FMI's history because this reincarnation of the
National Front (the umbrella group for Mossadegh's supporters) was constituted mainly of religious laymen, which differentiated it from the secular members of the banned National Front, including Mossadegh himself. The NRM campaigned for the 1954
Majlis to be free and fair (they were not) and attempted
Early 1960s: The creation of the Freedom Movement
In 1960, the Second National Front was formed, which mostly involved figures from the early 1950s during Mossadegh's time in office. However, in 1961, Mehdi Bazargan, Mahmud Taleghani, Yadollah Sahabi (all prominent liberals) broke away to form a more religious (and radical) counterpart to the National Front. This new group quickly gained a large following exceeding that of their rival and its leaders advocated civil disobedience such as protests, sit-ins and strikes as a way of pressuring the Shah to reinstitute democratic rule. But, after a brief period of reform under Prime Minister
Ali Amini
Ali Amini ( fa, علی امینی; 12 September 1905–12 December 1992) was an Iranian politician who was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1961 to 1962. He held several cabinet portfolios during the 1950s, and served as a member of parliame ...
, the government cracked down on dissent. In June 1963, a massive uprising occurred in five Iranian cities over the arrest of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, a radical cleric who had been making inflammatory statements concerning the government of the Shah and his allegedly anti-Islamic policies. Faced with this, the government sent in the army infantry and tanks to crush the riots, which resulted in at least hundreds (some believe thousands) of deaths. Because the FMI had supported the uprising, their group was singled out for harassment and made to disappear by the mid-1960s. But, in 1964, the FMI (along with other parties) helped to form (with Mossadegh's blessings) the Third National Front which, like the FMI, took a more active and radical stance toward the Shah's government compared to that of the more cautious Second National Front. By 1965, all legal forms of dissidence had been done away with, leaving armed violence as the only means of inflicting some sort of damage on the government.
Events leading to the Islamic Revolution (1965–1979)
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the FMI operated mostly outside in the country, mainly in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
. The seemingly omnipresent nature of
SAVAK (the Shah's secret police force, allegedly responsible for executing, imprisoning and torturing tens of thousands of political inmates) and the stifling police state atmosphere discouraged any sort of major activity inside Iran. Until the mid-1970s, those Iranians who had actively opposed the Shah had been mainly of left-wing or liberal background, with the former dominating by far. But beginning in that decade, thanks partly to the FMI, the religious elements (including the mullahs) began to dominate the movement. They were able to do this because the Islamic movement had a network of over 9,000 mosques, 180,000 mullahs and millions of pious followers in Iran and it could freely operate, unlike the left-wing elements who were mercilessly crushed by SAVAK, the police and the government's military apparatus. In January 1978, the pro-government newspaper ''
Ettelaat
''Ettela'at'' ( fa, اطلاعات, Ettelâ'ât, ) is a Persian language daily newspaper of record published in Iran. It is among the oldest publications in the country, and the oldest running Persian daily newspaper in the world. The paper has ...
'' published an article accusing Khomeini of being, among other things, a reactionary and British agent. This led to an uprising in the holy city of
Qom and the uprising soon spread to
Tabriz
Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...
,
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 ...
and other major cities. By the end of 1978, the government of the Shah (once touted as possessing the fifth largest military force on Earth) had all but collapsed under the weight of massive uprisings and workers' strikes. In response to the Shah's appointment of
Shapour Bakhtiar as prime minister, Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as head of the provisional government (which was not yet in power). On 11 February 1979, the government fell and what became known as the
Islamic Republic of 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 ...
took its place.
Islamic Republic of Iran (1979–present)
The Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed on 1 April 1979 after the results of a
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
in which allegedly more than 98% voted for this system. The Provisional Government took office on 12 February, right after the former government fell, but it quickly became apparent that this government lacked any real power, which was instead concentrated in the
Islamic Revolutionary Council (which was dominated by hard-line religious fundamentalists) and the local Islamic
Komiteh
Islamic Revolution Committees or Committees of Islamic Revolution ( fa, کمیتههای انقلاب اسلامی, Komitehāye Enqelābe Eslāmi), simply known as the Committee ( fa, کمیته, Komīte), was a law enforcement force in Iran act ...
s (committees). The PG was composed mainly of elements from the FMI (including Bazargan, Taleghani, Sahabi, Yazdi, Nazih), but also included a few leaders of the National Front (
Sanjabi, Ardalan,
Forouhar). This period expressed the height of the LMI's influence over Iranian politics, but it was not to last. By Aug. 1979, the new government was clamping down on dissent, outlawing nearly all political parties and instituting a campaign of terror against its critics. The Bazargan cabinet resigned en masse on 5 November 1979, and thus, ended the
Interim Government of Iran
The Interim Government of Iran ( fa, دولت موقت ايران, Dowlat-e Movaqat-e Irân) was the first government established in Iran after the Iranian Revolution. The regime was headed by Mehdi Bazargan, one of the members of the Freedom ...
.
The Islamic government (led by Ayatollah Khomeini) crushed all dissent in the country so that the oppositionists, both real and potential, either fled abroad or were murdered or imprisoned. But the LMI continued to exist as a barely tolerated force in the Majlis, where it called for an early end to the
war with Iraq in 1984 (the war had started in September 1980 when Iraqi forces, under the orders of
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
, invaded Iran).
In 20 Jan 1995, Bazargan died (of natural causes) and
Ebrahim Yazdi
Ebrahim Yazdi ( fa, ابراهیم یزدی; 26 September 1931 – 27 August 2017) was an Iranian politician, pharmacist, and diplomat who served as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in the interim government of Mehdi Bazar ...
took over as leader of the organization,
which held until his death in 2017. The group continued to exist as a tolerated party until the government cracked down on it in the year 2000, arresting and placing on trial dozens of activists belonging to the group, making the party non-operational. Since the election of
Hasan Rouhani as the president of Iran in 2013, FMI experienced a new era of political activity. On 27 August 2017,
Ibrahim Yazdi
Ebrahim Yazdi ( fa, ابراهیم یزدی; 26 September 1931 – 27 August 2017) was an Iranian politician, pharmacist, and diplomat who served as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in the interim government of Mehdi Bazarg ...
died due to cancer and Mohammad Tavassoli became the third secretary-general of FMI.
Leadership
Imprisonment of FMI members
See also
*
(1977–1980)
*
Eponym Group (1980)
*
Association for Defense of Freedom and the Sovereignty of the Iranian Nation (1986–1990)
*
Front for Democracy and Human Rights (2005)
; Splinter groups
*
People's Mujahedin of Iran
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) ( fa, سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران, sâzmân-e mojâhedīn-e khalq-e īrân), is an Iranian pol ...
(1965)
*
Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists of Iran
The Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists of Iran ( fa, شورای فعالان ملی-مذهبی ایران, Showra-ye Fa'alan-e Melli Mazhabi) or The Coalition of National-Religious Forces of Iran ( fa, ائتلاف نيروهای ملی-م ...
(2000)
References
External links
Official website—History of the Party
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freedom Movement of Iran
1961 establishments in Iran
Banned political parties in Iran
Islamic democratic political parties
Islamic political parties in Iran
Liberal parties in Iran
National Front (Iran) affiliated parties
Nationalist parties in Iran
Political parties established in 1961
Political parties of the Iranian Revolution
*