Foad Mostafa Soltani

Foad Mostafa Soltani (also known as Kak “brother” Foad) was a founding member, and the most prominent figure, of the Revolutionary Organisation of the Toilers of Kurdistan (Komala). Born in 1948 in Marivan city in Kurdish region of Iran. Soltani grew up and studied Electrical Engineering in Tehran, where he also secretly studied Marxism. With other Kurdish university students, he formed an underground socialist group that would later be known as Komala. Soltani was arrested by the secret police and tortured for information about Komala, which he did not give. When Soltani was released after four years in prison, in 1979, just before the Iranian revolution, he immediately started organizing Komala activities as the group’s leader, encouraging Kurds to participate in politics. Soltani was an important figure in creating resistance in Kurdistan after the Ayatollah’s jihad fatwa against Kurdistan in August, 1979. He wrote and published “The Kurdish People in Crucible” in response, which inspired in his fellow Kurds support for him and resistance against the regime. On August 31, 1979, Soltani was killed in an ambush by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Soltani has been written about in many popular poems and songs, and he continues to be a symbol of Kurdish activism to this day.