Ebrahim Zalzadeh was an Iranian journalist and publisher who was killed during the "Chain Murders" – a series of political assassinations that took place during the 1990s in Iran. The assassinations began during the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989 to 1997) and were orchestrated by the Ministry of Intelligence. The Chain Murders targeted and killed prominent writers and journalists who had been critical of the Iranian government. The assassinations ended during Mohammad Khatami’s government presidency (1997 to 2005) but the main perpetrators were never identified or brought to justice.

Zalzadeh was abducted on February 23, 1997. Thirty-seven days later, his body was found in the desert area of Yaftabad on the outskirts of Tehran.

Before his death, Zalzadeh worked as the managing director of the Bamdad and Ebtekar publishing companies and as editor-in-chief of Mayar magazine. In 1996, he published an issue of Mayar with the headline: “Mr. President, We are Saying the Call to Prayer at the Wrong Time" addressed to then president Rafsanjani. In the article, he wrote:  “Mr. President, throughout history we have seen that no dictatorial system has been stable nor will it remain stable for long. You well know that any system that fails to learn from history and adapt its policies to the demands of the masses will have the same fate as previous dictatorial regimes. It will be overthrown. History is not written by me nor is it written by you, but rather it is the masses themselves who shape the course of history.”

Shortly after this article was released, the publication of Mayar magazine was officially suspended and Zalzadeh was later abducted and murdered.

In December 2020, Hossein Zalzadeh, Ebrahim Zalzadeh's brother, spoke to Radio Farda in an interview, in which he said: “Those close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that when he read the article, he became very angry and said, 'Is no one going to restrain or silence Zalzadeh?' They immediately shut the magazine and a short while later this [his murder] happened to him. They broke his fingers, stabbed him with a knife 17 times and then slit his throat.”

Ebrahim Zalzadeh was among those who believed that the Cinema Rex Fire in Abadan, in 1978, an event that killed at least 420 people and which was widely seen as triggering the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was intentionally caused by revolutionaries for political purposes. He wrote a book entitled, “The Truth About Cinema Rex.” But two months before his death, and before he was able to publish the book, his manuscript was seized and confiscated by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence as they searched his house.

The fire, which occurred on August 19, 1978, occurred during a screening of The Deer, a popular contemporary film with anti-monarchy allusions and themes, to an audience of 630 people. Revolutionaries initially tried to blame the Shah’s government for the incident. But evidence and testimonies later showed that the fire – and 29 similar fires started in other cinemas across the country – were carried out by revolutionaries. One individual named Hossein Takbalizadeh confessed to committing the acts of arson. He and two of his friends admitted to setting fire to the Rex Cinema in Abadan in order to bring about the Islamic Revolution.

The day before he was abducted, Ebrahim Zalzadeh’s brother, who was travelling from Germany to Baku, asked him to meet him in Baku. Ebrahim said no: “I am very busy at the moment. And it’s strange; they’re following me like a shadow.” This was the last time that Hossein Zalzadeh talked to his brother and heard his voice.

The next day, on his way home from his office, Ebrahim Zalzadeh bought a bouquet of flowers as a present for his wife, only 200 meters away from his house, and he began to head home. It was then that Zalzadeh was abducted.

Five days later, Zalzadeh’s car was found on Tavanir Street, near Vanak Square. Under the driver’s chair was his press card and on the back seat was one of the jasmine flowers he had bought for his wife.

According to Zalzadeh’s brother, throwing his press card under the driver’s seat in his car was a message that he had been abducted. Ebrahim and some of his friends had agreed on this measure at a meeting during which they said that, if any of them was abducted or if something else happened, they should drop their press card as a sign.

There was no news of Ebrahim Zalzadeh's condition for 37 days after his disappearance. Throughout this period, officials expressed complete ignorance of his whereabouts but also demanded that Zalzadeh’s wife not speak to the media. Hossein Zalzadeh later spoke about this period, saying: “After 37 days, they said he had been killed and his body dumped in the deserts of Yaftabad. The deserts of Yaftabad are on the outskirts of Tehran. In that area there are a lot of qanats [ancient system of underground aqueducts]. That’s to say that if they did not want his body to be found, they would have thrown it into one of these wells, and it would most likely never have been found. But they left his body on the side of the street. For the autopsy and the death certificate, a friend of mine who worked at my brother's publishing company came [with me] to see the body with my cousin.”

Hossein Zalzadeh discussed how, even after 24 years, it was difficult and emotional for him to describe the condition of his brother’s body: “I still always see his face when I close my eyes. It is very difficult for me to talk about it. I don’t know how they [the agents from the Ministry of Intelligence] can call themselves human beings. A human being doesn’t do such things to another human being. If you were to pick up a pen or a pencil and hit a piece of paper with it 17 times, you’d get tired. They stabbed my brother in the chest 17 times and then slit his throat. As the saying goes: a coup de grâce.”

Hossein Zalzadeh gave further details about what happened to his brother before his death, continuing: “Before he died, they broke his fingers. That is, in effect, what Khomeini had called for: ‘Break the poisoned pens of the journalists’. Before they killed him, they broke Ebrahim's pen, that is to say, they broke his fingers, all ten of his fingers.”

After his death, Ebrahim Zalzadeh's wife tried to investigate and pursue legal action for her husband’s murder, but she was threatened to stop.

In an interview with Radio Farda in December 2020, Hossein Zalzadeh explained that authorities had announced the murder case was closed, and that the family had not been allowed to conduct a proper burial. When the burial was due to take place, security agents came to the cemetery and told the family to quickly bury the body. They then threatened the family, saying: “Either you shut up or we silence you.”

Ebrahim Zalzadeh was a school classmate of Saeed Hajjarian. At the time of Zalzadeh’s murder, Hajjarian was a member of then president Rafsanjani's Center for Strategic Research. He later became a political adviser to Mohammad Khatami, who succeeded Rafsanjani as president, and who was in office when the Chain Murders first began to be disclosed to the public. According to Hossein Zalzadeh, Saeed Hajjarian was involved in the government’s investigations into the Chain Murders.

Hossein Zalzadeh later contacted Saeed Hajjarian and asked him: "Why did you kill Ebrahim [Zalzadeh]?" Hajjarian responded: “Saeed Emami [then deputy minister of intelligence, who was one of the main figures in the Chain Murders] killed him and Ebrahim was on their list for a long time…”