High-ranking officials of the Intelligence Ministry of the Islamic Republic savagely murdered Mr. Dariush Foroohar and his wife Parvaneh on 24 November 1989 at their modest residence in central Tehran. Two other intellectuals, writers and human rights activists, Mr. Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Ja’far Pooyandeh joined the Forrohars two days latter, also killed by the same group.

From the outset, the leader of the regime, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i blamed the muders on "foreign hands", but Mr. Mohammad Khatami, the newly elected President, pointed to "local hands" and promised he would not leave a stone unturned to get to both those who ordered the killings, "regardless of their ranks or positions", as well as all those who carried out the orders.

Arrested with all his "gang", Mr. Emami was reported to have committed suicide in prison. While the government and reformists, including some informed journalists, like Akbar Ganji, Baqi and Qoochani, insisted Mr. Emami had been killed in order to hide the identities of the senior clerics who might have issued the orders for the assassinations, hard liners said agents of the government killed Mr. Emami,aliad Sa’id Eslami.

"From the start, we always said what we want is that those who ordered the assassinations be identified. But four years after that tragic night, where, according to the forensic reports, my mother had been stabbed 24 times and my father 12 with a knife, while attached to his chair, what we see is that hundreds of students are in prison, tens of pro-reform newspapers are shut and prominent dissidents are either behind bars or silenced, while some of those who carried out the murders are free", she observed.

"All our efforts to have access to the files would met with refusal and when, during rare occasions, we would be able to see something, it was a bundle of contradictions, the most important documents, related to the interrogations of Mr. Emami, the man the authorities had presented as the mastermind of the murders having disappeared from the files", she further noted.

In the meantime, the first lawyer, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, accused in another case, was banned from professional activities while her successor; Mr. Naser Zarafshan was jailed, charged with "activities against the State and divulgation of secret documents".

Ms. Parastoo’s "Report" was released as the Iranian intelligentsia prepare to commemorate on a national scale the fourth anniversary of the savage murder of Dariush and Parvaneh Foroohar on Friday 22 November, the same day that Ayatollah Khameneh'i, who is also the official Friday Preacher of Tehran, is expected to address the nation.

More than one hundred Iranian scholars, intellectuals, academics, journalists, lawyers, clerics, politicians and dissident activists of all walk, in a petition, have called on the Iranians to come with their families and relatives at the commemoration ceremonies.

The death verdict, handed over by a junior judge in the western city of Hamadan on orders from the Judiciary on the outspoken Islamic reformist and university professor has met with such popular anger and outrage both at home and abroad, that Ayatollah Khameneh'i was forced to order the Appeal Court to review the case, but at the same time he warned that he might call in "popular forces" in case the authorities were not able to solve the problem.

Some informed sources saw the leader’s menace as a first sign of his dissatisfaction with Ayatollah Mahmood Shahroodi, the Iraqi-born cleric he himself had appointed as Head of the Judiciary.