Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi (PerB| امیر فرشاد ابراهیمی ) (born August 14, 1975) is a former member of Quds Force of Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and is currently a peace and human rights activist living in Germany.

Paramilitary career

Born in the Gholhak district of Tehran, he joined Basij at the age of 12 and fought in the Iran–Iraq War. After graduation from Alborz High School, he joined the Qods special forces, one of the five forces of Sepah, and graduated from the Imam Ali military school of the Qods with a major in psychological warfare engineering.He was among the first series of Sepah officers who were sent to North Korea.

Media career

Ebrahimi also got a bachelor of Fine Arts in 1997 with a cinema major.

He was the media attaché of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon from 1997 to 1998. After coming back from Lebanon, he went to the law school and got his Master Degree in International Law from Tehran University in 2002. He received a Doctoral Degree In Human Rights From Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in May 2006.

"Confessions"

Ebrahimi appears in a controversial videotape in 2000, apparently confessing to a link between the hardline Iranian political and religious leaders and violent actions of an Iranian group known as Ansar-e Hezbollah.

Dr. Ebrahimi had previously held close connections to the members of this group and revealed a number of their inside secrets in the video tape. After the circulation of this tape, human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi was accused by an Iranian court to have been involved in making it. She was vindicated and released from prison after a brief period.

Dr. Ebrahimi was also sentenced and spent two years in prison. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/948906.stm BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Conviction of Iranian lawyers condemned ] ]

Works

He has written two books, "From Sarband to Blindfold" and "Republic of Ghosts," both in Persian, which were banned in Iran after publicationFact|date=April 2008. As of February, 2006, he is living in Germany and writing his memoirs.

On March 27, 2008, wire reports [NewsMax [http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ebrahimi_turkey_iran/2008/03/27/83602.html] Human Rights Activist Arrested In Turkey (retrieved 27 March 2008)] stated that he was in danger of extradition from Turkey to Iran, on charges that he "collaborated with peace Activist's in the flight of Ali Reza Asgari from Iran." [War and Piece [http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007220.html] ] His participation in several other events that have embarrassed Iran -- including unconfirmed reports that he provided intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons program to the United States -- raise the likelihood that he will be imprisoned and/or executed if sent to Iran.

References

External links

*fa icon [http://www.goftaniha.org His weblog]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/97506548@N00/ His photos in Flickr]
* [http://behnoud.com/articles/harsh.htm Masoud Behnoud article about Farshad Ebrahimi's letter to the former president Khatami]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/948906.stm BBC report of the confession video tape]
*fa icon [http://www.mihan.net/59/mihan-59-06-01.htm His video taped confession transcript]
* [http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0008&L=justwatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=P&S=&P=6570 Reaction to and summary of the 2000 tape]
*http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9834