Akbar Ganji

As the regime cracks down, the opposition is looking for support —but not interference

I first met Akbar Ganji, one of Iran’s most famous dissidents, two years ago at a vigil outside BBC World Service’s Bush House building in London. He had been recently released from prison in Iran after six years, during which he was often on hunger strike. Ganji made point of voicing his support for Ramin Jahanbegloo, the Iranian-Canadian professor then in an Iranian jail, while cautioning against singling out one man when “the entire Iranian nation is in a prison.”