About Akbar Ganji: Iranian Journalist (1960-)
Akbagangi (Persian: اکبر گنجی, born 31 January 1960 in Tehran) is an Iranian journalist and writer. He has been described as a “prominent political dissident in Iran” and a “widely popular pro-democracy journalist” who regularly crosses the “red lines” of censorship. A youthful supporter of the Islamic Revolution, he became disenchanted in the mid-1990s and died in 2001 after publishing a series of stories about the murder of dissident writers known as the Iranian serial murders From 2006 to 2006, he served his sentence in Evan Prison in Tehran. While in prison, he issued a manifesto that made him the first “famous dissident, believing Muslim and ex-revolutionary” calling for a “democracy” to replace Iran’s theocracy.
Ganj has been named an honorary citizen by many European cities and has been honored for his writing and citizenship, and his work has received several international awards including the World Press Association’s Golden Pen Award for Freedom, International Journalism with the Canadian Free Express Journalist Award Freedom Award, Martin Ennals Human Rights Defender Award, Cato Institute Milton Friedman Award for Advancing Freedom, and John Humphrey Award for Freedom.
early life
Ganji grew up in a devoutly poor family in Tehran. He was active in Islamist anti-Shah forces at a “relatively early age” and served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq war. He has a master’s degree in communications.
In 1994-5, Ganji lost his disillusionment with the government. “I see fascism and political tyranny emerging in Iran. Anyone who asks questions is labelled ‘counter-revolutionary’ and ‘anti-Iran’.” Gangi quit the Guard to become an investigative journalist. Shortly thereafter, he rose to prominence and clashed with authorities “for exposing the role of senior officials in approving the murder of liberal dissidents.”
Investigating serial murders in Iran
Ganji wrote extensively as a journalist in a range of reformist newspapers, many of which were shut down by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s judiciary. Ganji’s most famous work is probably the series of essays by Saeed Hajjarian Sob Emruz Every day about the 1998 murder of a dissident writer known as the Iranian serial murder. Akbar Ganji referred to the murderer under the code names “Lord Red” and his codenames “Lord Grey” and “Master Key”.
In December 2000, following his arrest (see below), Akbarganj declared that the “master key” of the chain of murders was former intelligence minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian. He “also named and condemned some high-ranking clerics, including Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazidi, for encouraging or issuing religious orders, or assassinations.” Conservatives attacked Ganji and denied his claims.
Collections of his articles appear in books, in particular, ghost dungeon and Red Pontifical and Grey Pontifical (Alijenob Sorkhpoosh va Alijenob-e Khakestari (2000)) focuses on the involvement of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his Intelligence Minister Ali Farahian in the serial murders. Red Pontifical and Grey Pontifical has been described Washington post The newspaper is known in the US as “the Iranian equivalent of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag”.A volume of his writings appearing in English translation is Iran’s road to democracy (MIT Press, April 2008).
arrest and imprisonment
Ganji participated in the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s conference entitled “Iran after the elections” after the February 2000 parliamentary elections, which resulted in a huge victory for the reformist candidate. The rally was called “anti-Islamic” and “anti-revolutionary” by Iranian state television IRIB, and parts of the meeting were broadcast on April 18, 2000. After returning to Iran from the conference, he was arrested on 22 April 2000 and charged with “compromising national security”. After being found guilty, he was sentenced in January 2001 to 10 years in prison and five years of internal exile, which means he will be held in a specific city outside Tehran and cannot leave the country. On 15 May 2001, the Court of Appeal reduced his 10-year sentence to six months and overturned his additional five-year sentence of internal exile. However, Tehran prosecutors challenged the appeals court’s ruling and brought new charges against him for newspaper articles he wrote before April 2000 and possession of copies of foreign newspapers. On July 16, 2001, he was sentenced to six years in prison for “gathering classified information endangering national security and disseminating propaganda against the Islamic system”.
Like other political prisoners before him, Ganji began writing from his cell. His political manifesto and open letter were smuggled out of prison and published on the Internet – two letters “to the free people of the world”:
In his final year in prison, Ganji went on a hunger strike for more than 80 days from May 19, 2005 to early August 2005, except on May 30, 2005, which was won before the ninth presidential election on June 17. 12 days off 2005. His hunger strike ended 50 days later, when “he relented when doctors warned him that he would suffer irreparable brain damage.” Due to press censorship and tight security and information isolation at the Milad hospital in Tehran, many Iranian No one has ever heard of a hunger strike. His hunger strike mobilized the international human rights community,” which included eight former Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Thousands of intellectuals and human rights activists around the world spoke on his behalf. It is widely believed that the global support for Ganj during this period Save him from life.”
He is represented by a group of lawyers including Dr. Yousef Molaei, Abdolfattah Soltani (who was arrested in 2005 on unknown charges and held in solitary confinement) and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
During his most recent departure in June 2005, Ganji participated in interviews with several news organizations, criticizing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and demanding that his office be put to a public vote. This led Tehran Attorney General Syed Mortazavi to re-arrest him for “illegal interviews”. He returned to prison voluntarily on 11 June 2005 and began another hunger strike.
freed
Ganji was released from prison on March 18, 2006 due to ill health after serving a six-year sentence, according to various countdowns set up by his family and on many Iranian web blogs. Meanwhile, Deputy Prosecutor Mahmoud Salarkia in Tehran claimed that he had 10 more days to his sentence due to unaccounted-for days of absence and that he had been granted leave for the Persian New Year. This claim has apparently been dropped since then.
In June 2006, Ganji left Iran. Since then, he has been writing and speaking in Europe and North America, speaking out for Iran’s pro-democracy movement against any U.S. military attack on his country.
Opinion
Ganji’s writings from prison were smuggled out and widely distributed, especially online.Most notably he wrote a Republican Manifesto In six chapters, March 2002, he laid out the basis for his proposal for a full-fledged democratic republic in Iran. In particular, he advocated that all elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran must be boycotted. In May 2005, before Iran’s ninth presidential election, he wrote his second book, The Republican Manifesto, in particular advocating an outright boycott of the presidential election.
In April 2008, the first English-language book at the fair appeared in Boston Review Books/MIT Press: Iran’s road to democracyby Joshua Cohen and Abbas Milani.
War in Iraq
Ganji opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent occupation.
In 2006, Akbar Ganji began interviewing the world’s leading philosophers, theorists, and human rights activists. His goal is said to be to introduce the Iranian intellectual movement and democratic circles to the world’s leading thinkers. He got to know many famous people such as Richard Rorty, Noam Chomsky, Anthony Giddens, David Held and Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt.
Despite repeated invitations, he declined to meet with any member of U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration on the principle that Iran’s democratic struggle must be fought domestically, without the support of foreign governments. Meeting with a White House official citing his belief that current U.S. policies are not helping to promote democracy in Iran. He was quoted as saying, “You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it”. He also added that the Iraq war is promoting Islamic fundamentalism and harming democratic movements in the region.
Ganji, who has declared his role as a dissident and journalist rather than an official voice representing a particular opposition party or faction in Iran, explained that is one of the reasons why he refuses to meet with U.S. political leaders and public officials.
During the visit, he criticized the Iraq war, claiming that instead of undermining the current Iranian regime, it enhanced its ability to repress and terrorize its people.
We do not want a regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, this is our problem. Any interference by any foreign power will bring conspiracy charges against us. … what happened in Iraq did not support our movement in any significant way.
2009 election protests
Ganji strongly supports the 2009 Iranian election protests. He went on a hunger strike outside United Nations headquarters to highlight the plight of Iranian political prisoners and draw international attention to the state of oppression inside Iran.
Awards and Honors
- PEN America, Honorary Member (2000)
- Canadian Free Expression Journalist, International Press Freedom Award (2000)
- North American Middle East Studies Association, MESA Academic Freedom Award (2005)
- Italian Press Freedom Award (2005)
- World Press Association, The Golden Pen of Liberty (2006)
- Honorary Citizen of Florence, Italy (2006)
- Martin Ennals Human Rights Defender Award (2006)
- National Press Club, John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award (2006)
- John Humphrey Award for Freedom, Rights and Democracy (2007)
- Milton Friedman Award for Advancing Freedom (2010)
- World Press Freedom Hero, International Journalism Institute (2010)
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