About Akbar Ganji Akbar Ganji (Persian: اکبر گنجی, born 31 January 1960 in Qazvin Province) is an Iranian journalist and writer. He has been described as a "Iran’s preeminent political dissident", and a "wildly popular pro-democracy journalist" who has crossed press censorship "red lines" regularly. A supporter of the Islamic revolution as a youth, he became dissenchanted in the mid-1990s and served time in Tehran's Evin Prison from 2001 to 2006 after publishing a series of stories on the murder of dissident authors known as the Chain Murders of Iran. While in prison he issued a manifesto which established him as the first "prominent dissident, believing Muslim and former revolutionary" to call for a replacement of Iran's theocratic system with "a secular democracy." Having been named honorary citizen of many European cities and awarded distinctions for his writing and civil , Ganji has won several international awards for his work, including the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award , Canadian Journalists for Free Expression's International Press Freedom Award, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, and the John Humphrey Freedom Award.