ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At the time when president Qazi Muhammad was executed by Iranian authorities for leading a short-lived Kurdish republic in Mahabad, his son Ali Qazi was only 13, sitting at home with his family.
On the anniversary of his father’s execution on March 31, 1947, he recalled that Qazi Muhammad, who was president for only a few months before the republic was crushed by the Iranian Shah, was publicly mourned.
"We heard the sounds of people weeping and beating their chests as they approached our home. Then we understood it; then we walked toward Chwarchra."
Muhammad was a well-known and educated Kurdish leader from Mahabad. Along with several colleagues, he began preparations for Kurdish self-determination in 1941, when the Allied powers invaded Iran.
According to his son, the Pahlavi regime had wanted to leave the body of the president and two of his colleagues -- Muhammad Hussein Saif Qazi and Abdul Qassim Sadr Qazi -- in the square for several days after the executions.
“Public pressure from the city of Mahabad -- by closing stores and the market -- forced the regime to transfer the bodies to the people,” he said.
Recounting the final days of his father’s presidency, Ali Qazi called the period a “golden page” in the Kurdish struggle.
"The Republic of Kurdistan is the first and the last Kurdish state that has been established until now," he said. "The Kurdistan Republic is a golden page in the history of the Kurdish liberation struggle."
The Kurdish republic was left stranded after the Soviet Union withdrew its troops and backing from the eastern part of Iran, opening the way for an Iranian crackdown. Ali Qazi explained that his father had vowed not to leave his people behind and decided to face his fate, even after the Kurdish state was left unsupported.
The short-lived Kurdistan Republic was declared on January 22, 1946. It gained support of Kurds from other parts of Kurdistan, mainly Iraq, where former Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani joined the republic, along with thousands of Kurdish fighters.
Ali Qazi castigated Kurdish parties in Iran for not carrying the slogans of freedom and independence for the Kurds.
"President Qazi demanded freedom and independence for the Kurdish people, but if you look at the Iranian Kurdish parties, they have no such slogans."
Qazi said that only his own Kurdistan Free Party (Parti Azadi Kurdistan) has carried these slogans. "We want to raise the Kurdistan flag in Chwarchara once more."
"I don't claim to have served Kurdish people much, but I have served Kurds whenever possible,” he said.
He also added that he and his family had faced lots of persecution by the Iranian governments, and there were even three assassination attempts on him.
In 1990, his sister, Efat Qazi was killed by a letter bomb in Vasteras, Sweden, an incident widely blamed on the Iranian regime.
Ali Qazi said he still had a dream: the formation of a Kurdish state in Greater Kurdistan.
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