When I talk about secularism, I’m talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.
AKBAR GANJII 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?
More Akbar Ganji Quotes
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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.
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The Shah’s regime was an incorrigible regime and after a while, when the revolution happened.
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You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it.
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Religion is the private affair of an individual…be present in the public domain, but state has to be clearly separated from religion.
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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…
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We recognized that the justice we expected and hoped for was not about to be achieved.
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We must struggle for creating a democratic system that is dedicated to democracy and human rights.
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The ecological movement is concerned about this, and this is in here, where everything is public.
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Religion is separate from the institution of the state.
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When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act.
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I did join the Revolutionary Guard, but I was simply a simple Revolutionary Guard, never a commander.
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In a totalitarian state, the state views any act of an individual to be political in nature. For example, the clothing that a person wears in a modern state is a private affair whereas in the Islamic Republic all women are forced to wear the hijab (Islamic attire).
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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.
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The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region.
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Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances,
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The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm.
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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.
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I am only speaking of my own behalf.
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The entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.
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We used to say that this is all lie, that we are lackeys of the United States.
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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.
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[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.
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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.
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The most important dichotomy that I make for a society is between those who support democracy and human rights, and those who oppose it.
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The number of the opposition has certainly increased [in Iran].
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I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions.
AKBAR GANJI