Kazem Sami

Kazem Sami
Minister of Health of Iran
In office
4 February 1979 – 2 November 1979
Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan
Preceded by Manouchehr Razmara
Succeeded by Mousa Zargar
Member of Parliament of Iran
In office
1980–1984
Constituency Tehran
Personal details
Born 1935
Mashhad, Iran
Died 23 November 1988
(aged: 53)
Tehran, Iran
Political party Freedom Movement of Iran
Alma mater Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
University of Tehran
Religion Shia Islam

Dr. Kazem Sami Kermani was Iran's minister of health in the transitional government of Mehdi Bazargan and leader of the Iranian Nation Liberation Movement (JAMA), an offshoot of Freedom Movement of Iran, a liberal religious-nationalist movement affiliated with National Front of Iran.

Contents

Political career

Dr. Kazem Sami was one of the leaders and organizers of the Iranian revolution. He served as the minister of health in the Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first minister of health after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He ran in the first Iranian presidential elections, but lost to Abolhassan Banisadr, coming sixth out of the seven presidential candidates. He served as a deputy in the first post-revolutionary Iranian Parliament. After distancing himself from the revolutionary government, Dr Sami remained one of the few active opposition leaders in Iran, openly criticizing the Islamic Republic government. He also wrote a famous open letter to Ayatollah Khomeini, criticizing him for the continuation of the Iran-Iraq war after Iran had recovered her occupied territories, notably the liberation of Khorramshahr.

Murder

Dr. Sami was murdered in his private medical clinic in 1988, under suspicious circumstances. He is believed to be one of the first victims of the "Chain murders",[1] a series of murders and disappearances of Iranian dissident intellectuals in the 1990s.

See also

References

  1. ^ An Iranian Health Authority Is Reported Slain at a Clinic