Information on the Peykar (Paykar) group is available in the attached Response to Information Request IRN7189 of 8 November 1990.

According to Radical Islam, the reason so many of the Mojahedin went over to Marxism was their disillusionment with the Ayatollah Khomeini, their inability to make headway among the Iranian intelligentsia and their associations with left-wing intellectuals (Abrahamiam, 149). The Peykar Organization saw the Shah's overthrow as a step towards a socialist revolution. The group accepted the anti-imperialist perspectives of Khomeini, but it refused to regard him as the national leader (Hiro, 147).

In the post revolutionary years the Peykar Organization was one of the most dogmatic and traditionalist groups in the socialist movement (Farsoun, 106).

In October 1992 Amnesty International reported that during the reign of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, sympathizers of political opposition groups, including the Peykar, were imprisoned and executed (Amnesty International October 1992, 2).

Although information regarding the current treatment of the Peykar group in Iran by the Iranian government is unavailable to the DIRB in Ottawa, there is no evidence that human rights practices in Iran improved significantly in 1992 (Country Reports 1992 1993, 999). Although the government is trying to conceal human rights abuses, it is known that summary executions, torture, repression of civil and political freedoms and a denial of citizens' right to change their government continue to exist (Ibid.). There have been reports of executions for political reasons, and the government has indicated that it equates active political opposition to the Islamic Revolution with terrorism (Ibid.).

Additional or corroborating information is currently unavailable to the DIRB in Ottawa.

Abrahamiam, Ervand. Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1989.

Amnesty International. 1 October 1992. Iran: Executions of Prisoners Continue Unabated. (AI Index: MDE 13/18/92). London: Amnesty International Publications.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992. 1993. U.S. Department of State. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Farsoun, Samih K. and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, eds. Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic. London: Routledge, 1992.

Hiro, Dilip. Iran Under the Ayatollahs. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987, p. 147.

Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre, Ottawa. 8 November 1990. Response to Information Request IRN7189.

Abrahamiam, Ervand. Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1989, p. 149.

Amnesty International. 1 October 1992. Iran: Executions of Prisoners Continue Unabated. (AI Index: MDE 13/18/92). London: Amnesty International Publications.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992. 1993. U.S. Department of State. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 998-1005.

Farsoun, Samih K. and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, eds. Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic. London: Routledge, 1992, p. 106.

Hiro, Dilip. Iran Under the Ayatollahs. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987, p. 147.

Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre, Ottawa. 8 November 1990. Response to Information Request IRN7189.