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Why did the regime put me in prison in the first place? I was put in prison for six years and it has been all illegal.

Akbar Ganji

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Akbar Ganji
Age: 54
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Ghazvin
Akbar Ganǧī
Firsts
First
Years
Regime
Regimes
Illegal
Six
Prison
Place

More quotes by Akbar Ganji

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The regime kept saying that all of my opponents are lackeys of the United States. We used to say that this is all lie, that we are lackeys of the United States.
Akbar Ganji
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The lower strata are suffering all kinds of oppression and the injustice that is inflicted upon them has many faces and many facets. Well-to-do classes are using all kinds of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits that this regime has created for it.
Akbar Ganji
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Three of our provinces have seen mass uprisings. The three provinces are Khuzestan, Azerbaijan, and Kurdistan. Recently, we witnessed massive demonstration by Iranian woman in the 7th of Tir square, and it was brutally suppressed.
Akbar Ganji
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Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market. It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
Akbar Ganji
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We've had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system? Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.
Akbar Ganji
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It began early in the revolution. It was a process that was unfolding on a daily basis. We expected the system to be dispensing justice, but every day that passed by, we recognized that the justice we expected and hoped for was not about to be achieved.
Akbar Ganji
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What I'm worried about is that, in case that happens [nuclear explosion], then the Iranian people are the ones who are going to pay the heaviest price. But none of the Western countries have seriously talked about this.
Akbar Ganji
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I am only speaking of my own behalf.
Akbar Ganji
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The difference between us and the other side is that they use populist and...kind of slogans that are...they fool the people. They are the kind of dishonest and populist slogans that we are not willing to use.
Akbar Ganji
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Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances, Iran is going to get between $50 to $55 billion in oil revenue, which is unheard of in the history of the revolution.
Akbar Ganji
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Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
Akbar Ganji
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Revolutions invariably don't solve the issue of justice, and in its place, suppression and limiting freedom replaces that idea.
Akbar Ganji
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The Revolutionary Guard was created to help defend the revolution, but it soon was diverted from its initial path.
Akbar Ganji
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I went to the front, but I never participated in the war itself.
Akbar Ganji
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I have spent six years in prison, the last six years. Even if I was outside the prison, how much actual space was there for an investigative journalist to do his work in Iran? But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.
Akbar Ganji
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It was universal pressure on the regime to secure my release. International pressure was certainly helpful in my release.
Akbar Ganji
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When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.
Akbar Ganji
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Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don't have a nationalities problem, we don't have an ethnic problem. It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.
Akbar Ganji
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We must struggle for creating a democratic system that is dedicated to democracy and human rights.
Akbar Ganji
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Let me begin by saying not only you can't have democracy with $75 million. You can't even have it with $750 billion.
Akbar Ganji