Qazi Muhammad

Qazi Muhammad (Kurdish قازی محه‌مه‌د or Qazî Mihemmed) (1893-1947) was a nationalist and religious Kurdish leader and the Head of the Republic of Kurdistan, (Republic of Mahabad) the second modern Kurdish state in the Middle East (after the Republic of Ararat).

Biography

Qazi Muhammad acted as the President of the Soviet backed Republic of Mahabad, in Kurdistan of Iran, (Eastern Kurdistan) in 1946. He was also the founder of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, the PDKI, that was established after the need for a more transparent party was felt by its adherents. (Komeley Jiyanewey Kurd existed prior to that, as a secret organization). Mustafa Barzani, the father of the nationalist Kurdish movement in Iraqi Kurdistan (Southern Kurdistan), was also the commander of its army. His cousin Mohammed Hossein Saif Qazi was a minister in his cabinet. A year later, after the Soviets withdrew from Iran, the Kurdish Republic was crushed by Iran's central government. The Iranian military court sentenced Qazi and some of his associates to death, and he was hanged in Chwarchira Square, in the center of the city of Mahabad, on March 30, 1947.

Family

One of his sons, Ali Qazi, is today an active member in the Kurdish movement.

One of his daughters, Efat Ghazi, was killed by a letter bomb in Västerås, Sweden, in 1990. Some...
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