Mohsen Rezaee

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Mohsen Rezaee : biography

9 September 1954 –

Mohsen Rezaee Mirgha’ed, also spelled Rezai () (born Sabzevar Rezaee Mirgha’ed; 9 September 1954), is an Iranian politician, economist and former military commander, currently the Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Before that, Rezaee was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps chief commander for 16 years.

Rezaee was born in Masjed Soleyman (Irsoleymān), Khuzestan. Shortly before and during the 1979 revolution, he was, like Ali Shamkhani and Gholāmḥusayn Ṣefātī-Dezfūlī, a member of the radical group "Mansuran".

Rezaee ran as a conservative presidential candidate in the 2009 Iranian elections, coming third with 1.7 percent of the vote, behind winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reformist runner-up Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Rezaee is closely associated with the news website Tabnak and .

Personal life

His father’s name was Najaf. Rezaee has five children, two sons and three daughters. One of his sons, Ahmad migrated to the United States in 1999, spoke against the policies of the Iranian Islamic government, and accused his father and others of supporting terrorist acts. He returned to Iran in 2008, but migrated to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. On 11 November 2011, his body was found on a hotel in Dubai. It was reported that he was killed by a hotel servant, but the Dubai Police stated that he had died after taking a large quantity of Antidepressants. His brother, Omidvar is a member of the Parliament of Iran since 2008.

References & notes

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. "Violent Aftermath: The 2009 Election and Suppression of Dissent in Iran". Feb. 2010, New Haven, CT. p. 5 http://www.iranhrdc.org/httpdocs/English/pdfs/Reports/Violent%20Aftermath.pdf

Early life and education

Mohsen Rezaee was born on 9 September 1954 to a religious nomadic family. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the oil-rich city of Masjed Soleyman (Irsoleymān) in southwestern Iran. Along with his close friends, he established the "Religion and Science Association". When he was to begin studying at a school run by National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in 1969, Rezaei moved to the city of Ahvaz. At high school, he started his political and cultural struggle against the Shah’s regime. In the last year of high school, he was arrested by the Shah Security service SAVAK in Ahvaz, interrogated and tortured. He was 17 when he served five months in solitary confinement. He did not stop his political activities after he was released from prison. Rezaei arrived in Tehran in 1974 to study mechanical engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology. He got married the same year. He studied and worked at the same time. SAVAK intensified its crackdown on guerrilla groups to which he was a member. He had to abandon the university. He launched provincial branches of Mansouroun guerrilla fighters in seven provinces. When Ruhollah Khomeini returned home from exile, the Mansouroun group was tasked with protecting the revolutionary leader. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, seven armed Muslim groups teamed up and established the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization to safeguard the nascent Islamic Revolution.

Although he studied mechanical engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Rezaee switched to economics after the Iran–Iraq War, studying at Tehran University, where he continued until 2001, when he received his Ph.D. He also co-founded Imam Hossein University and currently teaches there.

Military career

Rezaee became Chief Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1981, when he was only 27 years old, and remained in the post until he announced his retirement from all of his military posts. Arguably, he was the most powerful leader of Iran during the 1980s as his military organization gained support against Saddam Hussein and also had the major say on what religious and political leaders it supported.