Abdullah Mohtadi (; ; born 1949) is the leader and secretary general of Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
He was born in the city of Bukan, West Azarbaijan province, western Iran, and since starting his political career, has been playing a prominent role in the Kurdish resistance struggle against the Iranian regime.ITC In the international media, Abdulla Mohtadi is known as a political analyst of the Middle East, especially ongoing affairs of Iran and Iranian Kurdistan. He is also a well-known political figure in Iran and Kurdistan whose political activity has lasted for more than 30 years.
Abdullah Mohtadi was one of the leaders of the seven-year civil war in Iranian Kurdistan. Within Komala, the party’s Central Committee described this war as a struggle against the other major Kurdish party in Iran, KDPI, for hegemony in Kurdistan and for leadership of the Kurdish revolutionary movement.سندی از کمیتۀ مرکزی کومله: جمعبندی از بحث ارزیابی ۵ ماه جنگ ما و حزب دمکرات، در نشریۀ ایسکرا، ارگان کمیتۀ کردستان حزب کمونیست کارگری ایران، شمارۀ ویژه، ۸ اسفند ۱۳۸۲ (۲۷ فوریۀ ۲۰۰۴)؛ ص ۱۱. Abdullah Mohtadi's ideas for a social-democratic Komala calls for a “democratic secular pluralist federal Iran,” civil liberties, human rights and above all, social democracy. This idea has focused on regime change in Iran rather than establishing a Kurdish state with concentration on forming a united front of all ethnic groups while mobilizing Iran's Kurdish population.Secretary General
Biography
Early life and family Abdullah Mohtadi was born in Bukan in 1949 and moved to Tehran as a child at the request of his father. Mohtadi's father was a member of the Komala J.K and had been active in the party for a long time. After the establishment of the Republic of Mahabad, he was elected as Minister and after the defeat of the newly established government, the family moved to Tabriz, but shortly they decided to settle in Tehran, where the man of the family was teaching at the University of Tehran.
Mohtadi's family is known for its long active status in Kurdish politics. Growing up in a famous family for Abdullah was full of memories of being visited by many people, most of which were politicians, poets and writers all over of Iran and Kurdistan. The Mohtadi family was indeed an influential one with great wealth and stature. The father of the family, Haji Abdul Rahman aghai Ilkhanizadeh was a minister in the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in 1946; he moved to Tehran when the Republic of Mahabad failed. in the 1950s he changed the family name to Mohtadi, teaching [Sunni] theology at the University of Tehran.
Before Mohtadi was born, political activity in Iran and Kurdistan was highly inflamed. In Kurdistan, the Republic of Mahabad was defeated and Qazi Muhammad, the leader of this republic, was executed and most of the politicians were already either executed or imprisoned and a few managed to escape to Iraqi Kurdistan. The Shah military power was able to take control of Kurdistan and as well as the neighboring region of Azerbaijan, where the Republic of Azerbaijan had suffered to the same fate as the Republic of Mahabad. With Mossadegh in office from 1951 until 1953, political activity became more open. Gradually, political activists were able to reach out to people working in Iraqi Kurdistan and revitalize their political bonds. This process continued until the king stood against the people with all his might and the fall of Mossadegh's government which implicated in to the disruption of the political activity in Kurdistan again.
Abdullah's father moved to Tehran when the Republic of Mahabad failed. Abdullah Mohtadi soon got his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Tehran.کۆمەلەی شۆرشگێر As a teenager, Mohtadi was very interested in poetry, but after a while, he turned to politics and in a short time he became one of the political figures of Iran, especially in Kurdistan. In the late 1960s, a revolutionary movement was launched in Iranian Kurdistan by some of the political activists of the time like Suleiman Moini, Ismail Sharifzadeh, Mala Aware and Mohtadi's family which was closely associated with the movement, especially his older brother, Salahadin. This movement had such a profound effect on the formation of Mohtadi's future that when it failed, he decided to continue the movement in alternate ways with the help of like-minded friends.
At these times, there were only two Sunni theologians teaching at the university, both of them being Kurds. The other one was Molla Mahmmud Mofti, Abdullah Mofti's eldest son and Ahmad Moftizadeh's father. Aside from their career, the two fellow professors were close to one another out of the doors of the university and when Ahmad Moftizadeh followed his father to Tehran in 1958, he also developed close relations with the Mohtadi family and ended up marrying Abdul Rahman's daughter, Khadijah, thereby further cementing the ties between both families. Abdul Rahman's sons Salahadin and Abdollah, who had grown up in Tehran, gradually turned away from the religions of their fathers to the powerfully growing ideas of Marxism. They were to become leaders of the radical left Kurdish movement of Komala, which in 1979 clashed with Moftizadeh.Islam and politics in Iranian Kurdistan
Education Mohtadi was growing in this period, in a home where the flow of the political debate was a never-ending regularity. After the removal to Tehran, Abdullah was soon in elementary school at Alborz School and soon after graduating from high school, he went to the University of Tehran where he began studying business. After getting his bachelor's degree in business from the university, young Abdullah was very interested in poetry, but after a while he turned in to politics and by a short time, he was on the road to becoming one of the political figures of Iran, especially in Kurdistan.
Accordingly, Mohtadi's father was often a supportive character to young Abdullah, respecting his intellect and integrity. By his third year in college, Abdullah's increasingly vocal expressions of Marxist ideas were not just a matter of casual interest, but rather an engaging agenda in his family complex political subjects. Naturally, they debated the various facets of subjects like class struggle, tribal heritage and social advancement in Kurdistan, and the proper role of religion in society. However, cultural and familial tradition dictated that the tone of the conversation never truly resembled an adversarial debate.
Together with a group including Mohtadi and six other Kurdish students who were living in Tehran such as Foad Mostafa Soltani, Mosleh Sheikh-alislam, Shoib Zakaryai, Sedigh Kamangar and Mohammad Husein Karimi, Mohtadi decided to risk his life for those ideas. On October 27, 1969, in a secret initiation meeting in Tehran, he narrates that he became a founding member of the Komala party. His membership and activities with Komala were completely underground and not shared outside of the small group of member-activists as he continued his studies at the university.
Kurdistan in 1960s Political activity in Kurdistan was severely repressed in the 1960s. Again, most political activists had sought refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. Most of them, along with Mullah Mustafa Barzani, continued their activities and contributed to Barzani's movement and struggles. Abdullah's older brother Salahedin was associated with most of these movements in Kurdistan. After a while, a dispute broke out between these political activists in Kurdistan. These differences led a group of them to organize themselves in a new way to fight the Shah's regime again. The group chose the name "Revolutionary Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran". This group included Suleiman Moini, Mullah Avara, Suleiman Sharifzadeh who had direct contact with the Mohtadi family, especially Salahedin.
In 1967, the group lost all its members, most of whom were killed against the Shah's regime. In Tehran, as in Kurdistan, there was a lot of covert political activity, with the majority of them visiting the Mohtadi family in Tehran. In 1968, the Siahkal incident took place in northern Iran, and most of these guerrillas were defeated. These activities had a great impact on the formation of Abdullah. While studying at the University of Tehran, he and his friends decided to shape the patterns of a new party that could prepare itself to fight and use this experience of defeat.
Political career
Mohtadi founded Komala with fellow students in Tehran in October 1969. The year 1969 marks the founding date of the Komala Party. With the new party being alive, now Mohtadi and his fellow party members should put the best of their efforts to hide their track from the eyes of SAVAK. They decided to cut off the extra communications that would lead to their arrest, following the decision to refrain from further discussions in political circles. Because the Mohtadi family was known to the eyes, both in Kurdistan and Tehran, their homes were always a place for surveillance by SAVAK. During this time, Abdullah's older brother, Salahedin arrested several times by SAVAK to force young and passionate Abdullah more careful and not to take risks aimlessly. With all of the incidents, at this exact period Mohtadi knew well that the Shah's regime would deal severely with any political move in existence, by remembering the lessons of the Kurdish movement in the 60's. They had to consider all aspects of their activities and further try to bring this party into the populace and the support of the populace into the party, so that at the right time, they can wage an armed endeavor against the Shah's regime.
Mohtadi in 1970s
Despite all the efforts to remain in secrecy, in the 1970s, Mohtadi was arrested three times; with his last arrest, Abdullah sentenced to spend more than three years in imprisonment for his activism against the shah regime. Lastly, after the failure of SAVAK to provide any evidence regarding Mohtadi's political actions being, he released from prison and now, his party should cope with its most important era of the pre-Islamic Revolution Iran.Iran’s Troubled Provinces: Kurdistan
After his finale release from the prison, Mohtadi and his friends was gathering around every week to discuss the progress of their agenda. They contacted so many people and characters but they never directly asked anyone to engage in active fields. As for the newcomers, they were making sure of their commitment just before their engagement to the party.spoke to Abdullah Mohtadi
After a while, they decided that their activity among the students should split into two separate groups, one active in Tabriz and the other one active in Tehran. A group with Abdullah Mohtadi, including Foad Mustafa Sultani, Mohammad Husein Karimi and Mosleh Sheikkhol-islami expanded their activities in Tehran. Through this process, Abdullah and his friends were able to attract many people for their own gain without absorbing the SAVAK's attention.