Deaths About 420 Location Abadan, Iran | Date 20 August 1978 Location Abadan, Iran | |
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Attack types Arson, Mass murder, Terrorism Similar 2007 Yazidi communit, Air India Flight 182, 1998 United States em | ||
On 19 August 1978, the Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran, was set ablaze (Persian: آتش سوزی سینما رکس), killing at least 470 individuals. The event started when men barred the doors and doused the place with gasoline before setting it alight.
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The ruling government of Iran reported that Islamic militants set the fire, while the anti-Shah protesters blamed the intelligence service of the nation, SAVAK for setting the fire. Later it was disclosed that Islamic militants set the Cinema Rex on fire.
The fire
On 19 August 1978 at the Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran, hundreds of people were watching The Deers when, at 20:21, four men barred the doors of the cinema and doused it with petrol from a can. The fire started outside three entrance doors to the main hall, after the attackers allegedly dropped a match into the petrol. The attackers then fled and blocked the doors from the outside. Some people attempted to escape by the roof. None of the three tankers sent by the fire department had water and the police department, only 100 metres away, did not respond in a timely manner.
Death toll
There is speculation over the actual number of casualties incurred during the fire. Some of the numbers cited by sources include 377, 410, 430, 422, and over 800. A 1980 Amnesty-International report states that there were 438 victims, including individuals who were tried and wrongfully executed after the fire itself.
Daniel L. Bynam in the Washington Post said in 2007 that the fire was "the second-deadliest terrorist attack in modern history", after only the September 11th, 2001 attacks; it has since also been surpassed by the 2007 Kahtaniya bombings in Iraq, which killed 796.
Motives and responsibility
There have been numerous allegations in the past regarding the circumstances which led to the Cinema Rex fire, however it is certain that it was a key event that triggered the Iranian revolution in 1978. Initially, the revolutionaries alleged that intelligence SAVAK agents were in pursuit of individuals who ran into the movie theatre and used it as an opportunity to hide in a large crowd at the cinema. Later, either the fugitives, or the SAVAK agents chasing them decided to lock the doors of the cinema. Unable to escape from the building, everyone inside the cinema died as a result of the conflagration. The Iranian newspaper Sobhe Emruz pointed fingers to the radical Islamists in an editorial, "Don't make us disclose who were really behind the Cinema Rex fire" they said. This caused the newspaper to be shut down shortly after.
Post-Islamic revolution follow up of the case
According to the Washington-based IranRights.org, the families of the victims followed up the case and the newly established Iranian Government arrested Captain Monir Taheri. The Revolutionary Tribunal of Rudsar showed that Captain Taheri had received guerrilla training in the United States, while the defense maintained that Taheri had never visited Abadan, stressing that he was in Ahvaz at the time of the blaze. The revolutionary tribunal found Taheri "guilty" and executed him shortly thereafter on February 23, 1979.
According to Washington-based IranRights.org:
The day after Captain Taheri’s execution, his family asserted his innocence in an open letter published in the press and called on his fellow officers to come forward and testify. The letter also refuted the allegation regarding the defendant's guerrilla training in the US and referred to the fact that he had never traveled outside Iran. The letter refuted the charge related to the Cinema Rex fire noting that Captain Taheri had never been in Abadan and that there are documents proving that at that time he was on vacation elsewhere. The Medal of Honor, it stressed, was given to him prior to the Rex Cinema fire.After an effective public campaign headed by families of Cinema Rex victims, that included a four-and-a-half month sit-in at a government office, a representative of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Zia Rohani, presided over a public trial that would reopen the Cinema Rex case for the final time.
Lasting from August 25 to September 4, 1980, the Revolutionary Tribunal would oversee seventeen court sessions that involved the trial of twenty six individuals, including the only survivor of the four-man arson team. After much deliberation, Hossein Takbalizadeh, the lone surviving arsonist, and five others were put to death in public.