About Emadeddin Baghi Emadeddin Baghi is a "prominent Iranian rights activist and leading prisoners' rights advocate," and a "renowned Iranian investigative journalist." He is the founder and head of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in Iran, and the author of twenty books, six of which have been banned in Iran. Baghi was imprisoned in connection with his exposé writings on the Chain murders of Iran, from 2000 to 2002, and imprisoned again in late 2007 for another year on charges of "acting against national security." According to his family and lawyers, Baghi has been summoned to court 23 times since his release in 2003. He has also had his passport confiscated, his newspaper closed, and suspended prison sentences passed against his wife and daughter.Political arrests Emadeddin Baghi's record as a political prisoner or defendant includes: * A three-year prison term passed in 2000 by a Revolutionary Court on charges brought by the intelligence ministry and the conservative-run state television of “endangering national security” for his writings about the serial murder of dissident intellectuals in Iran in the late 1990s. He served two years of that sentence, and one year was suspended. * A one-year suspended term for “endangering national security” and “printing lies” in his book, The Tragedy of Democracy in Iran issued in 2003 by Judge Babayee of Branch 6 of the Revolutionary Court. * A one-year prison sentence for "acting against national security," issued on Oct. 15, 2007, when he was summoned by Tehran's revolutionary court on the charges of "propaganda against the Islamic Republic" and "divulging state secret information." This imprisonment has been condemned by Iranian lawyer, human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Baghi had been protesting a wave of public hangings that was part of a campaign by the authorities to improve "societal security". A year before his arrest and trial, Baghi had written an open letter to the heads of the reformist parties, scolding them for their silence over the increased number of hangings. * Baghi was among the numerous journalists and reformists detained on 28 December 2009 in the wake of violent crackdowns on Ashura protests. Organizations Emadeddin Baghi founded two Iranian nongovernmental organizations — the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, in 2003, and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in 2005. The two organizations produce reports on the situation of Iranian prisoners and gather data about death penalty cases in Iran. Awards * In 2004 he was awarded the Civil Courage Prize, but was prohibited from leaving Iran to accept it. and in 2005 he was awarded the French Human Rights Prize in recognition of his work campaigning against the death penalty. * In April 2008, Baghi was named International Journalist of the Year by the British press, but was forbidden by the Iranian government to visit London to accept the award. * In 2009, Baghi was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in Geneva and again was denied permission to attend the award ceremony by the Iranian government. Works One of Baghi's more notable books is The Right to Life, in which he argues that there is no such absolute requirement for the death penalty within Sharia or the Qur'anic verses. Baghi has been interrogated and imprisoned several times for articles he wrote making the arguments collected in this book. The book has been banned in Iran, but has been translated into Arabic.