Shaban Jafari

Fatemeh Moezzi

Sha¢ban Jafari was born in Tehran in Sanglaj in 1921. After a few years of education in schools like Onsori, Basirat and Islam, he dropped out of school due to mischief and became famous as Sha¢ban Bi Mokh from then on. After dropping out he tried many things but was not successful in any of them. Then he resorted to traditional sports due to his interest.
Sha¢ban, who had gathered a group of rogues from the neighborhood around him, was sent to prison at the age of 15 for hooliganism. In 1940 he started serving his military service because it was compulsory and due to frequent escapes, his two year service lasted four years. After the allies entered Iran, he ended his military service by fleeing from the garrison and after a while he established a sports club named Ahan gym in Shapoor square with one other wrestler and became champion in the field of chain and bow in the country’s championship competitions in 1943.

From 1947, when Jafari disrupted the theater named “people” in Ferdowsi hall, directed by AbdulhusseinNoushin, he gained popularity for the authority and instead of being jailed for disturbance and breach of public peace, he received some cash and was sent to Lahijan for a while by order of CID. He managed a traditional gym there and returned to Tehran after a year.
The 30s for this damned idiot was a golden decade. In 1950 when he was among the people welcoming back Ayatollah Kashani from exile, rumour spread that he is there to kill Kashani and so he was bitten severely by Kashani’s followers and was even hospitalized for a while.then he started supporting the oil nationalization campaign and Dr. Mosadegh on 6th December 1951, he and a his gang attacked the offices of Tudei and leftist newspapers like Chalangar, Mardom, Shouresh, Badr, … who opposed Mosadegh and plundered and ruined their offices. This riot led to his imprisonment in Ghasr prison.
After he was release he started again and on July 21st 1952 he worked towards bringing Mosadegh back to premiership but he changed his position shortly after and the incident on February 28th occurred. On that day, upon Mosadegh’s suggestion, the Shah intended to leave the country and travel to holy places when Sha¢ban, accompanied by a group of villains gathered in front of Marmar palace and prevented this and by threatening the merchants, the Bazaar was closed down and this group gathered in front of Dr. Mosadegh’s house and broke the doordown. This incident led to him imprisonment until 19th August 1953 when on the noon of that day he was released by Zahedi’s order and took charge of leading the villains and rascals. After the August 19th coup he became famous as Tajbakhsh. After this service, he met with the Shah by Zahedi’s advice and he was rewarded with a piece of land in which to found a sports club. Also in the same meeting he received permission to form a union named the Veteran Youth Union to be used in emergency situations. Building of Jafari’s gymnasium took three years to complete and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi inaugurated it himself. Teimour Bakhtiar had the honorary chairmanship of the gym for a while too. The gym’s expenses were provided by the court and the Shah’s associates and SAVAK. Although he denied receiving any kind of money from the court but there are documents showing his request for money from the court. In February 1963, Dr. Hussein Fatemi was arrested and Jafari, who had a peculiar enmity with him, headed for the police department with his gang and when Dr. Fatemi exited the building he attacked him and some even say he used a knife. In his memoirs he clearly denies this matter and believes it to be impossible on his behalf.

On the ceremony on October 26th, held every year, Jafari would perform traditional sports in Amjadiyeh stadium in front of the Shah. Many of the foreign gusts of the court were invited to him gym and traditional sports were performed there.
In the May 26th incident in 1963, Jafari’s gym was set on fire. In response on May 27th, Jafari and his veteran youth union poured into the streets and scared and intimidated the people. His presence on those days was so shocking that even the ministry of security asked him not to be seen much in public. Among his activities was holding religious sermons every year in Moharam in DabaghkhanehTekyeh, the cost of which he received from SAVAK.
With the onset of the Islamic Revolution he sensed danger and fled to Israel but returned to Iran again and at the same time as the Shah’s departure he went to Japan. From Japan he went to Germany Israel, France, England and Turkey. In Turkey he started working against the Islamic Republic of Iran with Marshal Ariana’s group. At the moment he lives in California and has US citizenship and he has recently published his memories with the help of HomaSarshar.

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