It was some time in August 1979. – After a long consultation with my friends from the ranks of Charter 77 I decided, in the right time, to get into the house of Prof. Jiří Hájek in Zahradní Město, Prague, and avoid being arrested. I got there in the exact time that had been given to me, as there was changing of the guards watching the house at that time. There was still the car Tatra 613 patrolling outside the house, but I managed to get inside the house with the password “even if they killed me”…

I did not even have to knock at the door. Mr. Hájek knew that I would come at that time and he was probably looking out of the window, so he opened the door for me before I knocked the door.

He was extremely courageous, fragile, thorough in his work, like a Swiss watchmaker. After I greeted his son and wife, we went to the room where, he believed, we were not eavesdropped. He knew, that it was just a matter of time before I am expelled and I was aware of that too.

He advised me to come into contact with Pavel Kohout in Vienna, in the benefit of Kurds. Mr. Kohout could help me to get to Bruno Kreisky. He emphasized the importance of meeting Kreisky, he placed a lot of hope in him in the matter of support to Kurds. He told me that Pavel Kohout would have been informed about me before I get to Vienna and meet him after my expulsion from the CSSR.

I did not need a contact to Pavel Tigrid. I had known how to get to him thanks to my friend, a chartist, Mr. Prokop Voskovec and Mrs. Vlasta Voskovcová who had been officially expelled to Paris. And also thanks to Mr. Gerarde London (Arthur London’s son) who had studied the Faculty of Medicine and also thanks to Mrs. Helena Quassemlo, Doc. Dr. Abdul Rahman Gassemlo’s wife. Mr. Gassemlo was the chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Iran, which got into a military clash with the newly established Islamic Republic Iran.

Soon after that visit I was really expelled. I settled in France when the French government granted me a scholarship for postgraduate studies.

Some time in November 1979 I left for Vienna by train. I found Pavel Kohout in the theatre, as Prof. Hájek hat advised me. There was a rehearsal. I waited until the break. I addressed him and he listened to me carefully. He had known that a Kurdish doctor would meet him and gave me a contact to the head of Bruno Kreisky’s office in the party and also a contact to the presidium of the government. He advised me to contact the head of Bruno Kreisky’s office in the SPÖ (the Social Democratic Party of Austria) first.

I did that and I presented myself as a representative of Doc. Dr. Abdul Rahman Gassemlo.

 

Doc. Dr. Abdula Rahmana Ghassemlou

I was admitted in a very friendly way. They had been informed about me in SPÖ. I insisted on meeting Kreisky. I did not realize how old I was and that, in fact, I represented just a tiny Kurdish force, rebellious against the mighty Islamic Republic Iran, supported by the most secret forces.

I was probably quite a freak and even such a wish of mine was not opposed or ignored. A Kurdish doctor, from the communist Prague, recommended by Prof. Hájek, the spokesman of the Charter 77, and Mr. Pavel Kohout, and a representative of the rebellious party opposing the first Islamic Republic… After two or three days of waiting in a hotel I met Brno Kreisky, I was a big admirer of his.

Bruno Kreisky was a highly respected person in the Socialist International. The cooperation between SPÖ and PDKI (the Democratic Party of Kurdistan – Iran), that was started like this, resulted in the fact that the party became an “observer” in the Socialist International and then even a member of the Socialist International, as the first Kurdish party in history.

The cooperation between Bruno Kreisky’s Austria and PDKI, the chairman of which was Abdul Rahman Gassemlo, a senior lecturer of economy (VŠE – College of Economy), continued on different levels even after Bruno Kriskey’s post of the Prime Minister was finished. The routes opened by Kreisky were left intact.

 

Some time in the second week of July 1989, Dr. Gassemlo arrived in Vienna with his delegation to have talks with diplomats, dispatched by Iran, regarding the terms of reconciliation between the central government in Teheran and the Kurds.

Those were not the only talks with Iran, held in Vienna.

After they entered the conference hall and the talks started, the Iranian “diplomats” took out automatic weapons and murdered all of the members of the Kurdish delegation, including Dr. Gassemlo… in the centre of Vienna!
The murderers, accompanied by the police escort from Iranian embassy, got to the airport and left Vienna. Afterwards, they got the highest post in the murderous structures of the Iranian state.

The rumour says that Austria gave consent to the murderers and ignored not only national but also international law after they had been threatened by the Iranians that all of the Austrian citizen in Iran would be taken as hostages. The Iranian had already got a lot of experience with such an act. During that year they really took hundreds of Americans as hostages and they dictated and enforced their terms to the greatest world power and the USA accepted all of them.

It seems that also Austria yielded to the institute of hostage to the detriment of all human and divine values and left a big shameful spot behind for the generations to come.

I still feel guilty because I myself opened the route through the visit to Prof. Hájek and then to Bruno Kreisky. And all that resulted in the murder of Dr. Gassemlo, my respectable friend and a life teacher.