Timeline of Iran (original) (raw)

Post-War Fallout: Rushdie Fatwa and Montazeri's Removal (1989) * 1987 November - Designated successor to Khomeini Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri "challenges" the "claim that political parties" are "irrelevant," and demands that the `law on political parties` be implemented. (Moin p.277)

• 1988 - Designated successor Montazeri begins to become more liberal calling for open assessment of failures and ceases his support of the export of revolution, claiming Iran should only be an example. (Keddie p.260) In private letter to Khomeini, Montazeri argues it is wrong to execute people who have already been tried and served their sentence. (Moin p.279)

• 1988 February - Khomeini criticizes Montazeri and one month later calls for a meeting of the Assembly of Experts to discuss him. (Keddie p.260)

• 1988 July 20 - Invasion of Iran by People's Mojahedin from its military base in Iraq. Generates zero political support in Iran. Advance defeated in two days. Hundreds of Mojahedin killed. (Moin p.278)

• 1988 Late summer and early autumn - "New reign of terror" against political prisoners. Khomeini appoints three-man commission, secretly telling them to determine which political prisoners have sincerely recanted and which have not. Those that have are released. Those that have not are executed. Amnesty International documents 3000 killed. Other sources estimate between 6000-10,000 executed. Most dead are Mojahedin but many are nonviolent demonstrators. (Moin p.278)

• 1989 January - End of series of lectures by designated successor Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri in which he indicates support for a "far more open" polity, including freedom for political parties to operate. Opposes mass executions of political prisoner. (Moin p.279)

• 1989 January - Montazeri goes public with criticism in daily newspaper Kayhan. (Moin p.279)

• 1989 January - Dissent within Khomeini power base. January/February issue of hardline journal Pasdar-e Islam complains against new moderate policies allowing some kinds of music to be played on radio and television, chess playing and use of eau de cologne. (Moin p.281-2)

• 1989 February 14 - fatwa issued by Khomeini calling for death of British author, Salman Rushdie, for his book Satanic Verses. Khomeini's bid for leadership of Islamic world. Refocuses energies of supporters demoralised by long, bloody, unsuccessful war. (Moin p.282-4)

• 1989 February 16 - President Khamene'i suggests if Rushdie apologises and disowns the book, people may forgive him." (Moin p.284)

• 1989 February 18 - Rushdie issues a carefully-worded statement regretting `profoundly the distress the publication has occasioned to the sincere followers of Islam...`(Moin p.284)

• 1989 February (late) - Khomeini refuses apology saying: `Even if Salman Rushdie repents and become the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.` (Moin p.284)

• 1989 February 22 - Khomeini counter attacks. Issues `Letter to Clergy` defending his war waging in Iraq: `... we do not repent, nor are we sorry for even a single moment for our performance during the war. Have we forgotten that we fought to fulfill our religious duty and that the result is a marginal issue?` (Moin p.285)

• 1989 March (early) - Montazeri letters condemning post-war wave of executions published abroad and broadcast on BBC. Khomeini furious. (Moin p.287)

• 1989 March 26 - Heir apparent Montazeri fired. summons senior leadership to sort out issue of succession. They advise against removal of Montazeri. Khomeini fires him anyway but agrees to keep private his angry letter to Montazeri in which he calls Montazeri a "spokesman for the monafeqin" (hypocrites). (Moin p.290)

• 1989 March 27 - Montazeri replies accepts his dismissal. "I ask all brothers and sister not to utter a word in my support." (Moin p.289)

• 1989 March 28 - Khomeini announces Montazeri has resigned his post. Following this Montazeri's title of grand ayatollah is withdrawn, publication of his lecture in Kayhan and reference to him on the state radio stopped, his portraits collected from offices and mosques, security guard withdrawn. "Articles and editorials appear in various newspapers aimed at dismantling" Montazeri's "impeccable" revolutionary credentials." (Moin p.290-1)

• 1989 April 24 - Constitutional change allowing supreme leader to be low-level rather than leading cleric. Khomeini health failing. No recognized marja have "political credentials" he wants. Khomeini calls special assembly for revising the Constitution to change vali-ye faqih job description to allow for a cleric he approves of (Khamene'i) to succeed him. Vali-ye faqih no longer has to be a marja`. (Moin p.293)

• 1989 June 3 - Khomeini dies. Five days of national morning declared. 40 days of official morning. Vast number of mourners delay funeral for a week. (Moin p.299, 304)

• 1989 June 4 - Khamane'i elected new supreme leader by Assembly of Experts, having been recently "promoted" to Ayatollah. (Moin p.300?, Brumberg, p.146) Promotion to grand ayatollah is "rejected by much of the clerical establishment in Qom." (Keddie, p.262)

• 1989 June 11 - Funeral. Millions mass funeral and graveyard. 10,000 injured, dozens killed in displays of grief. Khomeini's body is knocked to the ground and shroud ripped apart at graveyard. Body brought back to north Tehran to be reshrouded. Helicopters carrying it to and fro. (Moin p.304, 312-3)

• 1989 July 9 - New Constitution approved by national referendum. Acting swiftly after the death of Khomeini, leading clerics complete draft of new constitution and prepare for vote. Changes include removing requirement that the Supreme Leader be a marja`. (Brumberg p.146)

Post-Khomeini Period (1990- ) * 1992 January - Satellite antennas start to appear on rooftops in Tehran, hundreds of thousands begin watching previously unavailable Western Television broadcasts. (Satrapi, p.170)

• 1994 April 15 - Minister of the interior, `Ali Mohammad Besharati announces that the government has forbidden satellite antennas. (Schirazi, p.243) Enforcement of ban is not successful.

• 1997 May 23 - "Reformist" candidate Mohammad Khatami is elected President with 70% of the vote. Running on a platform of rule of law and democracy he receives heavy female and youth support. But during his two terms is unable to prevail in repeated clashes with the hardline and conservative Islamists in the government.

• 1997 November - Grand Ayatollah Montazeri put under house arrestafter saying that Supreme Leader Khamene'i was not competent to issue religious rulings. (Keddie p.283)

• 1998 Sept - Iran deploys thousands of troops on its border with Afghanistan after the Taleban admits killing eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist in Mazar-e Sharif.

• 1998 Nov. 22-Dec. 9 - Critics of the government found murdered. Jafar Pouyandeh, a translator and writer; Mohammad Mokhtari, a writer and poet; Majid Sharif, a prominent writer and political critic; Darioush Forouhar, and his wife Parvaneh Forouhar (n�e Eskandari) are all murdered or found dead under suspicious circumstances. (http://www.hrw.org/press98/dec/iranback.htm)
  In the following months, journalist Akbar Ganji links the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and other leading conservative figures to the murders. Ganji is arrested a year later for attending an academic and cultural conference on "Iran after the elections," in Berlin. He's sentenced on January 13, 2001 to 10 years' imprisonment plus five years' internal exile. (http://www.pen.org/freedom/hm/ganji.htm)

• 1999 July - Pro-democracy students at Tehran University hold a demonstration following the closure of the reformist newspaper 'Salam'. Clashes with the security forces and basij lead to six days of rioting and the arrest of over 1,000 students. (news.bbc.co.uk) "Several students" are killed and "many more" are injured. (Nasr, tnr.com)

• 2000 February 18 - Liberals and supporters of Khatami win 170 of the 290 seats in the Majlis elections held February, thus gaining control of parliament previously dominated by the conservatives since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Hard-liners win only 44 seats. An additional 65 seats will be decided in run-offs. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2000 April 23 - Judiciary bans publication of 16 reformist newspapers, following the adoption of a new press law. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2000 May 27 - Inauguration of the Sixth parliament.

• 2000 August 1 - Senior clerics issue a religious decree, or fatwa, allowing women to lead religious congregations of women worshippers. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2000 September - Satellite TV broadcasts from USA to Iran. Iranian-American Zia Atabay's Los Angeles-based, Farsi-language National Iranian Television (NITV), realizes its broadcasts are reaching Iran after NITV call-in show receives a telephone call from Isfahan. Station responds with appeals to Iranians and interviews of Reza Pahlavi. Enthusiasm for American-based Iranian opposition flags after a couple of years. (newyorker.com)

• 2001 April - Iran and Saudi Arabia (formerly bitter foes) sign major security accord to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2001 June 8 - President Khatami re-elected for a second term after winning just under 77% of the vote. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2001 September 12 - Thousands of Iranians in Tehran stage candlelight vigil for Americans killed in 9/11 attack. (newyorker.com)

• 2002 January 29 - "Axis of evil" speech. US President George Bush describes Iran, along with North Korea and Saddam's Iraq, as an "axis of evil". Warns that the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries is as great a danger to the US as terrorism. The speech causes outrage in Iran and is condemned by reformists and conservatives alike. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2002 September - Russian technicians begin construction of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2002 Autumn - Repression of pollsters. Authorized public opinion researchers Abbas Abdi, Hossein-Ali Ghazian, and Behrooz Geranpayeh are arrested and later tried and sentenced to several years in prison for taking and publishing the results of a poll finding that 74% of respondents favor negotiating with the United States and 64% favor opening relations with the United States. (Keddie p.281, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/2547661.stm)

• 2002 Autumn - polls indicate dissatisfaction 94% of those polled say Iran is in urgent need of reform and 71% back a referendum to choose a new form of government. (Keddie p.281, source: Economist, Jan 19, 2003, Survey: Iran "A Secular Democracy in Waiting.")

• 2002 November 6 - Death Sentence Hashem Aghajari sentenced to death for speech in June rejecting the doctrine that all Shi'i should follow a leading cleric and saying that imitation was for monkeys. (Keddie p.280; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/3053075.stm ) Sentence is later reduced to three years in jail.

• 2003 February - Iranian government no longer allows stoning as punishment. (Keddie p.283)

• 2003 June - Thousands attend student-led protests in Tehran against clerical establishment. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2003 August - Diplomatic crisis with UK over arrest of former Iranian ambassador to Argentina, sought by Buenos Aires on warrant alleging complicity in 1994 Jewish centre bombing.

• 2003 September - UN nuclear watchdog gives Tehran weeks to prove that it is not pursuing atomic weapons programme. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2003 November - Grand Ayatollah Montazeri freed from house arrest after his health deteriorates and calls grow for his release. "More than 100 Iranian legislators" call on President Khatami "to lift restrictions on Montazeri." Government is thought to not want to risk popular backlash should he die while in custody. (Keddie p.283)

Conservative Clampdown (2004- ) * 2004 February - Conservatives gain control of parliament in controversial elections; their win is consolidated in a second round of voting in May. Thousands of reformist candidates were disqualified by the hardline Council of Guardians before the polls. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2004 June - Iran is rebuked by the IAEA for failing to fully cooperate with an inquiry into its nuclear activities.

• 2004 November - Iran agrees to suspend most of its uranium enrichment as part of a deal with the EU.
  More than 400 people are killed in an earthquake in the southern province of Kerman. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2005 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultra-conservative mayor, wins a run-off vote in presidential elections, defeating cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2005 August-September - Tehran says it has resumed uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant and insists the programme is for peaceful purposes. An IAEA resolution finds Iran in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (news.bbc.co.uk)

• 2005 Oct. 26 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be "wiped out from the map," quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other world leaders express "dismay" over the comment. (cnn.com)

• 2005 December - A military aircraft crashes in a Tehran suburb. More than 100 people are killed. (news.bbc.co.uk) Crash blamed in part on Iran's aging air fleet and US sanctions which have made spare parts unavailable.

• 2006 January - Iran breaks IAEA seals at its Natanz nuclear research facility and says it intends to enrich uranium at the plant.
  Bomb attacks in the southern city of Ahvaz - the scene of sporadic unrest in recent months - kill eight people and injure more than 40. (news.bbc.co.uk)

References

Persian Student Association. http://www2.uic.edu/stud\_orgs/cultures/psa/timeline.htm

Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian, Princeton University Press, 1982

Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism : Essays on the Islamic Republic by Ervand Abrahamian Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993.

Arjomand, Said Amir, The Turban for the Crown : The Islamic Revolution in Iran, Oxford University Press, c1988

Benard, Cheryl, _"The Government of God" - Iran's Islamic Republic_by Cheryl Benard and Zalmay Khalilzad, Columbia University Press, 1984

Bakhash, Shaul, Reign of the Ayatollahs : Iran and the Islamic Revolution by Shaul, Bakhash, Basic Books, c1984

Bulloch, John, The Gulf War : It's Origins, History and Consequences by John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, London : Methuen London, 1989.

Brumberg, Daniel, Reinventing Khomeini : The Struggle for Reform in Iran by Daniel Brumberg, University of Chicago Press 2001,

Harney, Desmond, The Priest and the King : An Eyewitness Account of the Iranian Revolution, Tauris Publishers, 1998

Keddie, Nikki, Modern Iran : Roots and Results of Revolution by Nikki Keddie, Yale University Press, 2003

Mackey, Sandra The Iranians : Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, New York : Dutton, c1996.

Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, Thomas Dunne Books, c2000

Nasr, Vali, "Shirin Ebadi's Troubled History, Don't Hold Your Breath" TNR.com Post date: 06.06.2006 Issue date: 06.12.2006

Satrapi, Marjane, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, New York : Pantheon Books, c2004.

Schirazi, Asghar, The Constitution of Iran, Tauris, 1997

Taheri, Amir, The Spirit of Allah : Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution, Adler and Adler, c1985

Wright, Robin, The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil And Transformation In Iran, New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2000.

Timeline: Iran A chronology of key events:
BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle\_east/country\_profiles/806268.stm