Alireza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran, dead by suicude:



Sister, Leila Pahlavi, committed suicide in 2001:



The deposed former Shah of Iran (& wife, Farah Phalavi):



The Pahlavi family in younger & better times (Alireza in brown suit):



Quote:

(CNN) -- Alireza Pahlavi, son of the former shah of Iran, died Tuesday morning at his home in Boston, Massachusetts, a family spokesman said. The spokesman said it was a suicide.

Pahlavi, 44, was the son of the former shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979 and died the following year in exile in Cairo, Egypt.

Born in Tehran on July 28, 1966, Pahlavi attended schools in Iran before traveling to the United States in 1979 during the Iranian revolution. He obtained a B.A. from Princeton University in 1984 and a masters degree from Columbia University in 1992 and attended Harvard University in pursuit of a Ph. D. in Ancient Iranian Studies.

In June 2001, Pahlavi's sister, Leila Pahlavi, also committed suicide.

He is survived by his mother, Farah Pahlavi, his older brother Reza, his sister Farahnaz and his half-sister Shahnaz.

link with embedded video:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/04/shah.s ... l?hpt=Sbin

Q: Impressions and thoughts, please.

Thanks.

My sympathies to his mother, surviving siblings, nieces and nephews if any, friends and other family.

His sister having committed suicide before him, there might be some sort of mental illness running in the family, or it could be an unfortunate co-incidence. Of course I expect the conspiracy theorists to be at full hue and cry over this latest "murder".

lordshipmayhem wrote:My sympathies to his mother, surviving siblings, nieces and nephews if any, friends and other family.

His sister having committed suicide before him, there might be some sort of mental illness running in the family, or it could be an unfortunate co-incidence. Of course I expect the conspiracy theorists to be at full hue and cry over this latest "murder".

Causes leading to his suicide (per video in link in OP):

1. disturbed by the sorry state of current political ills in Iran, which regime overthrew his father (the Shah)

2. his father's overthrow and humiliating exile; the Shah's death while in exile - and his sister's subsequent suicide

3. the burden of carrying the Pahlavi name and history, which name was disgraced in the overthrow of the Shah

4. resulting depression as a result of the above

"SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centres, like the notorious Evin Prison. It is universally accepted that SAVAK routinely subjected detainees to physical torture. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians (especially students on government stipends) abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

SAVAK agents often carried out operations against each other. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Hussein Fardust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Also, SAVAK planned and executed the Black Friday (1978). SAVAK has killed an estimated amount of 20,000 people over the course of the Shah's regime."

Well what a sad bit of news. May His Imperial Highness rest in peace; I won't presume to pass judgment on his death. And let his kin regain their throne one day.

pensioner wrote:"SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centres, like the notorious Evin Prison. It is universally accepted that SAVAK routinely subjected detainees to physical torture. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians (especially students on government stipends) abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

SAVAK agents often carried out operations against each other. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Hussein Fardust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Also, SAVAK planned and executed the Black Friday (1978). SAVAK has killed an estimated amount of 20,000 people over the course of the Shah's regime."

Um that was random...

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:And let his kin regain their throne one day.

Seriously?

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

pensioner wrote:"SAVAK [...]

Um that was random...

Not if you know anything about the history of modern Iran, how the Shah got his throne (hint: with a good bit of help from his friends at the CIA), and what he did while he ruled (hint: he wasn't the nicest fella).

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (known as the 28 Mordad coup[1] in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States.[2] The coup launched 26 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to power until the Shah himself was overthrown in February 1979.[3]
In 1951 with near-unanimous support of Iran's parliament, Mosaddegh nationalized the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). At the time, Iran's oil was Britain's single largest overseas investment.[4] Popular discontent with the AIOC began in the late 1940s, a large segment of Iran's public and a number of politicians saw the company as exploitative and a vestige of British imperialism.[5] Despite Mosaddegh's popular support, Britain was unwilling to negotiate its single most valuable foreign asset, and instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically.[6] Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the Abadan oil refinery, the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee opted instead to tighten the economic boycott.[7] With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Churchill and the U.S. administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to overthrow Iran's government though the predecessor U.S. Truman administration had opposed a coup.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Irani ... 7%C3%A9tat

Shrunk wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:And let his kin regain their throne one day.

Seriously?

Why of course. Read my signature.

ChasM wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

pensioner wrote:"SAVAK [...]

Um that was random...

Not if you know anything about the history of modern Iran, how the Shah got his throne (hint: with a good bit of help from his friends at the CIA), and what he did while he ruled (hint: he wasn't the nicest fella).

I do happen to know a bit about Iran. But whatever faults his father may have had are not the kid's fault. And in any case the Shah was a few thousand times better than the crowd of gangsters ruling the Land of the Aryans today. For once I'm taking the side of the secularists.

pensioner wrote:"SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centres, like the notorious Evin Prison. It is universally accepted that SAVAK routinely subjected detainees to physical torture. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians (especially students on government stipends) abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

SAVAK agents often carried out operations against each other. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Hussein Fardust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Also, SAVAK planned and executed the Black Friday (1978). SAVAK has killed an estimated amount of 20,000 people over the course of the Shah's regime."

I agree, they where bad. However, the current lot are much worse.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:I do happen to know a bit about Iran. But whatever faults his father may have had are not the kid's fault.

True. But the sins of the father are visited upon the son, unfortunately. I was guessing that this was the point of the SAVAK post (in the same way I assumed you meant the post was a complete non sequitur). And I agree that the current gang is no great improvement on the Shah's rule.

The Shah of Iran was a savage and cruel dictator who helped overthrow a democratic secular government led by Mohammad Mossadegh.
This guys only crime was that he thought the oil wealth should belong to the Iranian people and not the rich and powerful in America or Great Britain. He paid a price for that stupidity has have a lot of other folk in the third world.

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/biography/

"On August 15, 1953, with participation of the Shah and their Iranian collaborators, a CIA drafted plan codenamed Operation Ajax, headed by Kermit Roosevelt, went into action, but it failed to dislodge Mossadegh from power. In the second attempt on August 19, 1953, the violent overthrow of the government was accomplished. Mossadegh escaped capture, but his home was invaded, looted and burned to the ground.
The following day Mossadegh surrendered to authorities and was imprisoned. During this bloody episode, many hundreds were killed or wounded. Followers of Mossadegh were arrested, imprisoned, tortured or even murdered. Mossadegh's Foreign Minister, Dr. Hossein Fatemi went into hiding but was captured a few months later. He was beaten, stabbed and, after a show trial, executed by a firing squad. The reign of terror had begun.
Tried as a traitor in a military court, on December 19, 1953, Mossadegh pronounced:

"Yes, my sin-- my greater sin... and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire. ...This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property. ...With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.
...I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests."

Mossadegh was convicted of treason. He was placed in solitary confinement for three years followed by house arrest for the remainder of his life in his ancestral village of Ahmad Abad. On March 5th, 1967, Mohammad Mossadegh died at age 85, one year after the passing of his beloved wife of 64 years.

"If I sit silently, I have sinned."
"I put my trust in the support of the Iranian people. That is all." - Dr. Mossadegh

james1v wrote:

pensioner wrote:"SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centres, like the notorious Evin Prison. It is universally accepted that SAVAK routinely subjected detainees to physical torture. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians (especially students on government stipends) abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

SAVAK agents often carried out operations against each other. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Hussein Fardust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Also, SAVAK planned and executed the Black Friday (1978). SAVAK has killed an estimated amount of 20,000 people over the course of the Shah's regime."

I agree, they where bad. However, the current lot are much worse.

I agree completely. Anyone who doubts it can consider the number of refugees from Iran before and after the revolution. And as someone said, the sins of the father are not transmitted to the son, though I disagree completely with the idea of him (or anyone else) going to become king.