Davood Noroozi

Davood Noroozi (Persian: داوود نوروزی) (1924 – October 12, 1993) was an Iranian communist politician and the editor of the official organ of Tudeh Party of Iran. He was also one of the members of The Fifty-Three and was sentenced to death in absentia.

Background
Davood Noroozi, was born in Tehran and graduated in law and social sciences from the University of Tehran. In 1963, he defended his doctoral thesis on "The Establishment of Foreign Capital in Iran in the 19th Century" at the Martin Luther School in Halle, East Germany, and successfully obtained his postdoctoral degree in 1966. From 1968 until the start of muscle paralysis at the Academy of Social Sciences of East Germany, he engaged in academic activities.

Following the shooting at Mohammad Reza Shah and the declaration of the Tudeh Party as illegal and the illegalization of the party in 1948, Davood Noroozi joined the covert network of the Tudeh Party of Iran and played a significant role in rebuilding the network under clandestine conditions, especially in the areas of propaganda and publications.

For a period, he served as the editor-in-chief of the most important cultural journal of the Tudeh Party of Iran in the 1950s, named "Sogand," (pledge) and simultaneously as the editor-in-chief of the party's central organ, "Nameh Mardom"  (People's Letter). Later, he took on the editorship of "Bisouye Ayande" (Towards the Future) when "Nameh Mardom" was absent.

With the coup on August 19, 1953, Davood Noroozi, who remained in the country and continued his covert activities, was sentenced to death in absentia. In 1955, under the leadership's order, he left the country as the party managed to reconstruct itself abroad. For a while, he became a member of the editorial board of the magazine "For Stable Peace," the organ of communist and workers' parties published in Budapest, Hungary.

In "Radio Peyk Iran," initially stationed in East Germany and later in Bulgaria (1961–1975), Davood Noroozi became the editor-in-chief, playing a crucial role in organizing the staff and program coordination.

After the Iranian Revolution, Davood Noroozi did not join the leaders of the Tudeh Party of Iran who returned to Iran for two reasons. Firstly, due to illness, and secondly, because he had a tainted record regarding the disclosure of the destructive role of Pro-British clerics during Mohammad Mossadegh's government. He fundamentally believed in their repeated role in the 1979 revolution and was not someone who had another conviction to follow and write about.

He remained in East Germany during migration and, after the Islamic Republic's takeover of the Tudeh Party and the beginning of the party's leadership reconstruction outside the country, he contributed what he could. In the 18th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran held in December 1983 in Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, he attended alongside the party's initial leadership, including Reza Radmanesh, Iraj Eskandari, Ardeshir Ovanessian, and Akbar Shandermani. In this Plenum, he was suggested for membership in the new Political Committee of the party.