Cinema Rex Fire edit
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Cinema Rex Fire edit
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On August 20, 1978, Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran, was set ablaze, killing approximately 500 individuals.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi said that Islamic militants set the fire, while the public believed that the Shah and the country's intelligence service, SAVAK, set the fire.1
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A short while after the start of the movie, police officers noticed smoke coming from Cinema Rex, which was located on the upper level of a commercial building. The police officers radioed the on-duty officer at the Abadan Police HQ and reported they had identified a number of suspects who had entered the Cinema, and the suspects had noticed they were under surveillance, and had started a small fire in a corner so they could escape the cinema with the rest of moviegoers. After consulting a supervisor, the on-duty officer instructed the officers not to allow anyone to leave the Cinema until the police chief and additional officers arrived.
The police officers outside the Cinema were under the impression that the suspect terrorists had started a small fire in a corner in an attempt to escape with the rest of the moviegoers and did not know that a premeditated plot to burn the cinema and all the people inside was underway. So, they put a lock on the main entrance gate in front of the stairway leading up to the theater. The police also prevented a bystander who wanted to break the gate with his pickup truck from doing so when the intensity of fire and smoke started to increase. When the police chief arrived, the Cinema was completely engulfed in fire. The fire trucks only arrived some 20 minutes after the start of the fire.
Virtually all the victims had burned while still in their seats, which indicated that at the time the fire entered the theater, the victims were already unconscious or dead. The fire department investigators believed the Freon gas from the heavy-duty air-conditioning system had reached inside the theater before the fire did. Since Freon is much heavier than air, people inside had already passed out or may have already been dead when the fire reached the inside of the theater. It was never determined if the Freon leak from the air-conditioning system was part of the arson plan, or resulted from fire damaging the air-conditioning system. But, Freon is only toxic in extremely large amounts, so it was probably from fire damaging the air-conditioning refrigerant plumbing.
There is speculation over the actual number of casualties incurred during the fire. Various sources draw their own conclusions concerning the death toll. Some of the numbers considered include: 400,2 410,3 430,4 and (over) 800.5 The National Fire Protection Association, a reputable source on fire-related issues lists the number of dead at 422.6
A 1980 Amnesty-International report states that there were 438 victims, including individuals who were tried and wrongfully executed after the fire itself.7
According to Daniel L. Byman in Washington Post in 2007, the fire was "the second-deadliest terrorist attack in modern history," after only the September 11th, 2001 attacks; it has since been surpassed by the 2007 Kahtaniya bombings in Iraq, which killed 796.
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Dilip Hiro, author of Iran Under the Ayatollahs, said that anti-Shah groups were not likely to have caused the fire since the Cinema Rex was located in a working class neighborhood and showed the film Gavaznha ("The Deer"); Hiro added that Gavaznha "passed the censors with considerable difficulty." Hiro also said that the deliberate closure of the cinema doors and the local fire station's efforts, which Hiro described as "tepid," strengthened the public belief that the Shah had the cinema burned.1
According to Roy Mottahedeh, author of The Mantle of the Prophet, "thousands of Iranians who had felt neutral and had until now thought that the struggle was only between the shah and supporters of religiously conservative mullahs felt that the government might put their own lives on the block to save itself. Suddenly, for hundreds of thousands, the movement was their own business."8
According to Daniel L. Byman, "The movies were an affront to God, encouraging vice and Western-style decadence. So in August 1978, four Shiite revolutionaries locked the doors of the Cinema Rex in the Iranian city of Abadan and set the theater on fire…" (see Byman).
Finally, Islamists opposed cinema for ideological or doctrinal reasons. While Shia Muslims (unlike some strict Sunni Musilms) do not forbid pictures, many strict Shia believe any motion pictures "with music, dance or any other un-Islamic portrayal is haram to view." Ever since motion pictures were first introduced into Iran at the turn of the 20th century, the clerical establishment saw the medium as not only a threat to moral righteousness, but also a direct attack on their position as authority figures. The depiction of women without proper religious attire and other blasphemous content furthered anti-Western sentiment, solidifying an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality that in part continues to maintain clerical dominance over Iranian society.2
As the event took place during the revolutionary period, it was quite difficult to make out who the perpetrator(s) was, making ill-conceived accusations rather prevalent. Many elements of the revolutionary bloc laid blame on Mohammad Reza Shah, the now deposed authoritarian monarch of Iran, and SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar), the country’s domestic security and intelligence service. Although sufficient evidence was never brought forth to facilitate such claims, the labeling would have far-reaching implications on the subsequent direction of the revolutionary movement. The circumstances in which the fire was set did not aid in the shah’s pleas of innocence either. The timing and the location of the incident (an impoverished district of Abadan) did not coincide with preceding patterns of protestation, which raised the level of suspicion. It was also believed that the shah specifically targeted Cinema Rex for the sole purpose of killing political dissidents who had gathered to watch a controversial anti-government film called Gavaznha (The Deer) starring well-known actor Behrouz Vossoughi.9104
Another rumour suggested that the shah intentionally blamed the incident on Islamist militants in an attempt to discredit and potentially dislodge them from their growing influence within the undefined hierarchy of the revolutionary forces.7
As a whole, the ruling government's conduct after the fire did not parallel that of a perceived non-implicit party. The shah assumed a highly reactionary guise by placing General Gholam Ali Oveissi in charge of the capital that was already under a state of martial law,3 and Jamshid Amouzegar, Prime Minister of Iran at the time, was replaced by Jafar Sharif-Emami,11 in a sense symbolizing the deteriorating state of the Pahlavi regime. Although such tactics were meant to restore order in the midst of growing civil unrest, it was seen as representing an unorganized regime in crisis control.
Another theory as to why many believed there was explicit royal involvement revolved around the central government’s inflexible posturing when it came to the production of feature films. Because the film industry in Iran was for the most part subsidized by the state, films were meant to be molded to project the Pahlavi regime in a positive light. Dissent and anti-governmental activism through such mediums were strictly prohibited. In order to escape censorship, political messages would be presented through more abstract means.9 Elements of the state apparatus were fully aware of such internal transformations and the fire at Cinema Rex was seen by some as being punishment for defying the state’s strict production parameters.
Nothing solidified the shah’s perceived guilt more so than that of Captain Monir Taheri’s trial.
After the success of the revolutionary forces, Islamic tribunals were established as part of the Islamization of society. Members of the shah's regime who were unable or chose not to leave the country were often subject to the judgment of the newly instated judicial process. In the midst of revolutionary terror and general uncertainty, many were tried and convicted for crimes they had little or nothing to do with. This was for the purpose of quelling the population’s thirst for revolutionary justice. The Cinema Rex fire was an event that continued to loom over the minds of many Iranians, and closure, no matter how vulgar the result, was vital not only for legitimizing the newborn government’s capacity to fulfill public demands, but also to crush any form of royal revivalism.
Captain Monir Taheri, member of Iran’s pre-revolutionary armed forces, was arrested in the town of Mianeh two days before his trial and execution on February 21, 1979; a few months after the fire at Cinema Rex. The conviction of an army officer was significant because the blame was placed squarely on the shah who had always had a close relationship with the armed forces.
Based on the available information from the press, the defendant had been accused of "martyring three people in Rudsar," "receiving guerilla training in the United States," "involvement in the Abadan's Rex Cinema fire," "receiving a Medal of Honor [for his participation in the fire]," and "involvement in the torture of political prisoners in Mashhad and Shiraz."
According to published sources, there was no evidence to suggest that the Captain had any involvement in the fire. Additionally, no mention of Taheri was made by either defense or prosecution staff during the public trial of 1980. Like many other defendants who were brought before an Islamic tribunal at this time, Taheri was not given sufficient time to organize any form of defense.
Before his execution by firing squad on February 23, 1979, the court fulfilled four of Taheri’s requests, including: not to be blindfolded, to avoid being photographed during the execution, to personally give the firing squad the order to fire, and to return his body to his family.7
Days later, Taheri’s family rebuked with counter claims suggesting that many of the charges the Captain faced were utterly fallacious in nature. This not only mobilized a popular campaign headed by the discontented families of Cinema Rex victims, but also brought into question the legitimacy of the very institution that tried Captain Taheri – the Islamic tribunals.
After Captain Taheri’s family protested the charges that eventually led to the officer’s execution, the public had quickly become restless over the secretive posture assumed by Abadan authorities. After an effective public campaign headed by the disillusioned families of Cinema Rex victims that included a four-and-a-half month sit-in at a government office, a representative of Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Zia Rohani, presided over a public trial that would reopen the Cinema Rex case for the final time.
Lasting from August 25 to September 4, 1980, the Revolutionary Tribunal would oversee seventeen court sessions that involved the trial of twenty six individuals, including the only survivor of the four-man arson team. After much deliberation, Hossein Takializadeh, the lone surviving arsonist, and five others were put to death in public.
“In his defense statement, the principal defendant admitted to having started the fire along with three other religious activists and denied having had connections with the former regime’s security apparatus.”7