Berkley Center

Akbar Ganji is one of Iran's leading investigative journalists. Ganji is the winner of the 2006 World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award, the 2006 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, and the 2010 CATO Institute's Milton Friedman Award for Advancing Liberty. His most daring articles appeared in 1998, when he implicated the Ministry of Intelligence under former president Rafsanjani in a series of killings of regime-critical intellectuals and writers. Ganji was arrested in the spring of 2000, after he took part in an international conference on Iran's future and was imprisoned for nearly six years. While in prison, he issued a document calling for secular democracy to replace Iran’s theocratic system. Ganji left Iran in 2006. In 2008, Ganji released his first English language book: The Road to Democracy in Iran. In 2007 he spoke at Georgetown on the challenges of democracy in Iran. In 2010, Ganji won the CATO Institute's Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.