Journalist, contemporary historian, theologian, and prolific author, Baghi exposes the government’s involvement in the assassination of Iranian intellectuals and anti-government activists.

A former revolutionary and seminary student, Baghi came to reject the rule of the theocracy and became an advocate for a secular state in Iran and the voice for many political dissidents. In 1999, he and Akbar Ganji, another reformist journalist, wrote about the murders of 80 secular writers, intellectuals, and political activists throughout the l990's, accusing the government of overt involvement. These articles galvanized the public.

Within one year of their publication, the government shut down nearly every reform newspaper in the country. Baghi was arrested, put on trial and imprisoned in solitary confinement for apostasy and endangering the security of the Islamic state.

He has written 20 books, six of which are banned in Iran, including A Study About the Clerics, in which he argues for an Islam open to individual understanding rather than clerical interpretation.

Baghi was a veteran of seven shuttered papers when he started, Jumhuriyat (Farsi for Republic), which was shut down after 13 issues.

He founded, Defending the Prisoners' Rights Committee, an organization to help defend intellectuals imprisoned for espousing pro-democracy ideas and opinions.

Baghi was detained by Iranian authorities at the Tehran airport on his way to New York to receive the 2004 Civil Courage Prize.

For further information about Mr. Baghi please visit www.emadbaghi.com/en.