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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
Place
Firsts
First
Years
Regime
Regimes
Illegal
Six
Prison

More quotes by Akbar Ganji

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The number of the opposition has certainly increased [in Iran]. There is more disgruntlement, but because there is no media, the voice of this opposition is not heard outside Iran.
Akbar Ganji
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In the West, when all of these reactors, nuclear reactors, are matters...part of the public domain, there are all kinds of supervision over them. We see that the ecological movement, environmentalist movement, organizes all kinds of demonstrations against these. They lie on railroads, they tie themselves to the gates.
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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When I was on my hunger strike, and I was in a hospital, the guards who inflicted all manner of injustice against me, and all manner of hardship...I could witness that as a result of Ahmadinejad, they lived in a dream. They believed that paradise is around the corner and that all their demands shall be met.
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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There is no possibility of a public demonstration [in Iran] of such defiance, but these defiant acts are certainly going on.
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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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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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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[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.
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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I am only speaking of my own behalf.
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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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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Khomeini obviously had many problems, but he had one clever side to him. He never made economic promises to people and as a result, he never led to dissatisfaction in this perspective. Because they need to get votes, they use misleading slogans. And this leads to rising expectations. I had a personal experience.
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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I did join the Revolutionary Guard, but I was simply a simple Revolutionary Guard, never a commander.
Akbar Ganji
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We have two kinds of oppression. Oppression that is universal - everyone in Iran is subject to it. But everyone has also their own, unique way of experiencing this oppression.
Akbar Ganji
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Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
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