Editing Death squad (section)

==== Iran ====
{{Main|Extrajudicial killings in Iran}}
{{Further|Chain Murders of Iran}}
After the [[Iranian Revolution|Islamic Revolution]] overthrew the Shah, [[Amnesty International]] continued to complain of [[Human rights in Iran|human rights abuses in Iran]].<ref>Abrahamian, Ervand, ''Tortured Confessions'',  (1999)</ref> Suspected foes of the [[Ayatollah Khomeini]], were imprisoned, tortured, tried by [[kangaroo court]]s, and executed. The most famous victim of the era's death squad violence remains [[Amir-Abbas Hoveida]], a Prime Minister of Iran under the Shah. However, the same treatment was also meted out to senior officers in the Iranian military. Other cases exist of Iranian dissidents opposed to the Islamic Republic who have been tracked down and murdered abroad. One of the most notorious examples of this remains the 1992 [[Mykonos restaurant assassinations]] in [[Berlin, Germany]].

The Iranian government's victims include civilians who have been killed by "death squads" that operate under the control of government agents but these killing operations have been denied by the Iranian government. This was particularly the case during the 1990s when more than 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens who had been critical of the government in some way, [[Chain Murders of Iran|disappeared or were found murdered]].<ref>Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: the Elusive Face of Iran, Free Press, 2000, p.241</ref> In 1983 the American [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) gave one of the leaders of Iran [[Khomeini]] information on Communist [[KGB]] agents in Iran. This information was almost certainly used. Later, The Iranian regime occasionally used death squads throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. However, by the 2000s, it seems to have almost if not entirely ceased its operations. This partial [[Westernization]] of the country can be seen as paralleling similar events in [[Lebanon]], the [[United Arab Emirates]], and [[Iraqi Kurdistan|Northern Iraq]] beginning in the late 1990s.