On 13 March, two women, one with a gun and the other with a knife, attacked Ghotbzadeh protesting the fundamentalist policies of the Islamic regime. Nearly 15,000 women also gathered outside the headquarters of the NIRT to protest his Islamist policy. Sadegh Ghotbzadeh (1936 – 1982) was a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini during his 1978 exile in France, and foreign minister during the homeland hostage crisis following the Revolution. In 1982, he was executed for allegedly plotting the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Ghotbzadeh was born in Isfahan in 1936. He had a sister and a brother. His father was a wealthy lumber merchant.As a student, he was active in the student branch of the National Front following the toppling of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.
He left in 1959 after being detained twice due to his opposition activities to the Shah’s regime; he lived in Europe, the US and Canada. Ghotbzadeh was a supporter of the National Front of homeland. In addition he was one of the senior members of the Freedom Movement of homeland led by Mehdi Bazargan in the 1960s. He attended Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service from 1959 to 1963. He contributed to the movement from the US.
