Abolhassan Banisadr

Seyyed Abolhassan Banisadr (22 March 1933 – 9 October 2021) was an Iranian politician, writer, and political dissident.

Banisadr was born on 22 March 1933 in Hamadān.

His father was an ayatollah and close to Ruhollah Khomeini.

Banisadr studied law, theology, and sociology at University of Tehran.

In the 1960s, he studied finance and economics at the Sorbonne.

Banisadr participated in the anti-Shah student movement during the early 1960s and was imprisoned twice, and was wounded during an uprising in 1963, which led to his fleeing to France.

He later joined the Iranian resistance group led by Khomeini, becoming one of his hard-line advisors.

In 1972, Banisadr's father died and he attended the funeral in Iraq, where he first met Ayatollah Khomeini.

His father, seyyed Nasrollah Banisadr migrated to the Hamadan area from Qazi Qushchi village in Bijar in Kurdistan province.

He was the first president of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution abolished the monarchy, serving from February 1980 until his impeachment by parliament in June 1981.

Prior to his presidency, he was the minister of foreign affairs in the interim government.

He had resided for many years in France where he co-founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Following his impeachment, Banisadr fled Iran and found political asylum in France.

Banisadr later focused on political writings about his activities during the Iranian revolution and his critiques of the Iranian government.

Banisadr returned to Iran together with Khomeini as the revolution was beginning in February 1979.

He wrote a book on Islamic finance, Eghtesad Tohidi, which roughly translates as "The Economics of Monotheism."

Following the Iranian Revolution, Banisadr became deputy minister of finance on 4 February 1979 and was in office until 27 February 1979.

He also became a member of the revolutionary council when Bazargan and others left the council to form the interim government.

After the resignation of the interim finance minister Ali Ardalan on 27 February 1979, he was appointed finance minister by then prime minister Mehdi Bazargan.

On 12 November 1979, Banisadr was appointed foreign minister to replace Ebrahim Yazdi in the government that was led by the Council of the Islamic Revolution when the interim government resigned.

Banisadr was elected to a four-year term as president on 25 January 1980, receiving 78.9 percent of the vote in the election, and was inaugurated on 4 February.

Khomeini remained the Supreme Leader of Iran with the constitutional authority to dismiss the president.

The inaugural ceremonies were held at the hospital where Khomeini was recovering from a heart ailment.

Banisadr was not an Islamic cleric; Khomeini had insisted that clerics should not run for positions in the government.

In August and September 1980, Banisadr survived two helicopter crashes near the Iran–Iraq border.

During the Iran–Iraq War, Banisadr was appointed acting commander-in-chief by Khomeini on 10 June 1981.

The Majlis (Iran's Parliament) impeached Banisadr in his absence on 21 June 1981, allegedly because of his moves against the clerics in power, in particular Mohammad Beheshti, then head of the judicial system.

Khomeini himself appears to have instigated the impeachment, which he signed the next day.

According to Kenneth Katzman, Banisadr believed the clerics should not directly govern Iran and was perceived as supporting the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

Only one deputy, Salaheddin Bayani, spoke in favor of Banisadr during his impeachment.

Even before Khomeini had signed the impeachment papers, the Revolutionary Guard had seized the Presidential buildings and gardens, and imprisoned writers at a newspaper closely tied to Banisadr.

Over the next few days, they executed several of his closest friends, including Hossein Navab, Rashid Sadrolhefazi, and Manouchehr Massoudi.

Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri was among the few people in the government who remained in support of Banisadr, but he was soon stripped of his powers.

At the same time, the Iranian government outlawed all political parties, except the Islamic Republican Party.

Government forces arrested and imprisoned members of other parties, such as the People's Mujahedin, Fadaian Khalq, Tudeh, and Paikar.

Banisadr went into hiding for a few days before his removal, and hid in Tehran, protected by the People's Mujahedin (PMOI).

He attempted to organize an alliance of anti-Khomeini factions to retake power, including the PMOI, KDP, and the Fedaian Organisation (Minority), while eschewing any contact with monarchist exile groups.

He met numerous times while in hiding with PMOI leader Massoud Rajavi to plan an alliance, but after the execution on 27 July of PMOI member Mohammadreza Saadati, Banisadr and Rajavi concluded that it was unsafe to remain in Iran.

In Banisadr's view, this impeachment was a coup d'état against democracy in Iran.

He became a critic of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the country's handling of its 2009 elections.