Abolhassan Banisadr, the first Iranian president after the 1979 Islamic revolution, died in a Parisian hospital after a long illness. He was 88 years old. The former president’s family gave the news of his death. Elected president in 1980, Banisadr was removed from parliament after 16 months for attempting to oppose the growing power of the Shia clergy. He fled to France, where he obtained political asylum. In Paris, together with other dissidents, he founded the National Resistance Council, an organization that aimed to overthrow the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. Banisadr left the Council in 1984.
In 2019, in an interview, the former president said that Khomeini, who disappeared in 1989, had betrayed the principles of the revolution after the conquest of power. In announcing his death, the family declared that the former president was able to “defend freedom in the face of new tyranny and oppression in the name of religion”.