Ebrahim Zalzadeh

Who was Ebrahim Zalzadeh?

Ebrahim Zalzadeh was a dissident Iranian author and editor who was murdered in 1997 in what is thought to have been one of the "chain murders" of dissidents by "rogue elements" in Iran's intelligence ministry.

Zalzadeh was editor of the Iranian literary monthly Mayar, a publication that frequently criticized Iranian government censorship practices against the media, and was forced to close by the authorities in 1995. He was also the director of the publishing house Ebtekar.

Zalzadeh disappeared on February 22, 1997 and was identified in a Tehran morgue on March 29. According to the coroner's report his body was discovered half-buried and with multiple stab wounds in the chest, on or about February 24 by a road in the outskirts of Tehran. He was in a Tehran morgue on March 29, 35 days after he had been reported missing.

"Zalzadeh was one of several Iranian writers and publishers who had volunteered to share the punishment of magazine editor Abbas Maroufi, who was sentenced in January 1996 to six months in prison and 35 lashes for criticizing the government."