1981 in Iran

← 1980 1979 1978 1981 in Iran → 1982 1983 1984
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
See also:	Other events of 1981 Years in Iran

The following lists events that happened during 1981 in Iran.

Incumbents

• Supreme Leader: Ruhollah Khomeini
• President:
  • until June 22: Abolhassan Banisadr
  • June 22-August 2: Provisional Presidential Council
  • August 2-August 30: Mohammad-Ali Rajai
  • August 30-October 13: Provisional Presidential Council
  • starting October 13: Ali Khamenei
• Prime Minister:
  • until August 4: Mohammad-Ali Rajai
  • August 4-August 30: Mohammad-Javad Bahonar
  • September 2-October 13: Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani
  • starting October 13: Mir-Hossein Mousavi
• Chief Justice: Mohammad Beheshti (until June 28), Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili (starting June 28)

Events

January

• January 5 - For the first time since Iraq had invaded its territory in September, Iran launched a counterattack, concentrating its armies at Sousangerd. After 18 months, Iraqi forces had been driven out of Iran, which then began a drive toward capturing Iraqi territory. The war would continue until 1988.^[1]
• January 11 - Iran dropped a demand that the United States deposit 24 billion dollars in gold into an Algerian bank as a condition of the release of 52 U.S. Embassy workers being held hostage in Tehran, settling instead for the release of the nearly 8 billion dollars of Iranian assets that had been frozen in American banks.^[2]
• January 20 - On Jimmy Carter's last day as 39th President of the United States, he had hoped that the 52 American hostages in Iran would be allowed to leave before his term expired at noon. At 6:18 am Washington time, the escrow papers were completed to transfer $7,970,000,000 in Iranian assets from U.S. banks to the Bank of England. At 8:04 am EST, the Algerian intermediaries notified both the U.S. and Iran that the transfer was complete. The Boeing 727 carrying the hostages, Air Algérie Flight 133, was boarded at 8:20 pm Tehran time (11:50 am EST), but did not depart until 35 minutes later, after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office as the 40th U.S. President.^[3] The plane left Iranian airspace an hour, landing in Athens for refueling, then arriving at Algiers at 2:10 am local time the next day, where the former hostages were transferred to two Medevac planes and flown to Wiesbaden Army Airfield in West Germany.^[4]
• January 25 - The fifty-two Americans, who had been held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, returned to United States soil at 2:54 pm, as the plane carrying them landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York. The group, who had been freed five days earlier, had flown from West Germany and were greeted by a crowd of 300,000 well-wishers. "^[5]

June

• June 11 - A 6.8 earthquake struck Iran's Kerman province at 10:56 am local time, destroying the town of Golbaf and killing 1,027 people.^[6]
• June 20 - In Tehran, demonstrations by the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) against the dismissal of President Banisadr became violent, and a wave of arrests and executions of PMOI members followed. According to some accounts, the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the Islamic Revolutionary Guards to fire into the crowd and more than 100 demonstrators were killed.^[7] In another account, the PMOI battled with the Guards, with 15 dead on each side.^[8] In the first three weeks after the demonstration, 195 of Banisadr's supporters had been tried and executed.^[9] By year's end, the government had announced a total of 1,656 executions before a firing squad.^[10]

October

• October 2 - Iranian presidential election, October 1981

See also

• Years in Iraq
• Years in Afghanistan

References

1. Saskia Gieling, Religion and War in Revolutionary Iran (I.B.Tauris, 1999) pp20-22
2. "Iran drops $24 billion demand", Syracuse Herald-American, January 12, 1981, p1
3. Jimmy Carter, Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President, excerpt in TIME Magazine, October 18, 1982
4. "Yesterday's chronology of events, AP report January 21, 1981
5. 300,000 greet the 52", Syracuse Herald-Journal, January 26, 1981, p1
6. "Thousands feared dead as quake hits Iran", Glasgow Herald, June 12, 1981, p1; "Iran Sets Death Toll At 1,027 in Quake", Toledo Blade, June 16, 1981, p2
7. Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (Oxford University Press US, 1989) p146
8. Dilip Hiro The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys through Theocratic Iran and Its Furies (Nation Books, 2005) p135
9. "23 executions bring Iran total to 195", Deseret News (Salt Lake City), July 13, 1981, p1
10. "Iranian Parliament Member Assassinated", Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald, December 29, 1981, p1