Kazem Sami

Kazem Sami was one of the leaders and organizers of the Iranian revolution. He served as the minister of health in the Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first minister of health after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He ran in the first Iranian presidential elections, but lost to Abolhassan Banisadr, coming sixth out of the seven presidential candidates. He served as a deputy in the first post-revolutionary Iranian Parliament. After distancing himself from the revolutionary government, Dr Sami remained one of the few active opposition leaders in Iran, openly criticizing the Islamic Republic government. He also wrote a famous open letter to Ayatollah Khomeini, criticizing him for the continuation of the Iran-Iraq war after Iran had recovered her occupied territories, notably the liberation of Khorramshahr.

Dr. Sami was murdered in his private medical clinic in 1988, under suspicious circumstances. He is believed to be one of the first victims of the "Chain murders", a series of murders and disappearances of Iranian dissident intellectuals in the 1990s.