Ramin Jahanbegloo
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Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo (Persian: رامین جهانبگلو ), born 1961 in Tehran, is an Iranian political philosopher and a university professor.
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[edit] Education
Jahanbegloo gained his Ph.D. in philosophy from Sorbonne University and his post-doctorate education in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. He is the cousin of renowned Islamologist Seyyed Hossein Nasr.[1]
[edit] Works
He is one of the members of the Iranian intellectual movement, with much of his writing focused on constructive dialogue among divergent cultures. He has contributed significantly to understanding of western philosophy in Iran and has written numerous books in Persian, English and French, as well as several articles, about Western Philosophy and Modernism. He was an adjunct professor of Political Science department in University of Toronto when he was in Canada. He has been the Head of Department for Contemporary Studies at Cultural Research Bureau.
He has interviewed numerous scholars and intellectuals from all over the world, including Isaiah Berlin, George Steiner, and Noam Chomsky and, more recently, the Dalai Lama. Through the last couple of years he invited Richard Rorty, Antonio Negri, and Michael Ignatieff and other scholars to Iran.
[edit] Arrest
In late April 2006, after he came back from India to Iran, Jahanbegloo was arrested by the Iranian government, speculated to have a relation to his recent interview with a Spanish newspaper about Ahmadinejad's comments concerning the Holocaust. [2] [3] [4]
On May 3, Iran judiciary branch officials confirmed that he has been arrested and now he is imprisoned in the Evin Prison. Additionally, an unconfirmed source told the Fars News Agency that he was charged with spying. [5]
On May 4, a friend of his told CBC News that he has been transferred to a hospital. [6]
On May 5, Human Rights Watch expressed concern about Jahanbegloo being detained without charge and stated that he must immediately be released. [7] [8]
On May 6, The Ottawa Citizen published an article containing concerns voiced by Jahanbegloo's friends that he was being tortured. These concerns become more urgent when it became known that Jahanbegloo had been examined twice in the medical clinic at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for political prisoners. Boston University Professor Houchang Chehabi, an Iranian friend of Jahanbegloo, indicated this was a "bad sign" because it "may mean he's been tortured..." [9]
On May 9, more reports from Tehran raise concerns about Jahanbegloo's welfare. According to an AFP report, a hardline Iranian publisher ran a story that accused Jahanbegloo of having links to U.S. and Israeli espionage.
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- "He is considered as one of the key elements in the American plan for the smooth toppling" of the Islamic regime, the report added, saying he was on a US payroll to conduct "cultural activities against Iran".
These accusations are troubling, as they mirror the accusations made against Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who was also accused of espionage. Kazemi died while in the custody of Evin Prison, with reports surfacing later of torture and brutality. [11]
On May 13, the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), an Iranian human rights group headed by Iran's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, voiced concern over the arrest and jailing of the prominent intellectual. [12] [13]
On May 15, the Council of the European Union, following a meeting in Brussels, issued a press release expressing concerns about the detention of Jahanbegloo, including the detention's underlying message that Iranians ought not to communicate or associate with Europeans:
On May 19, more than 400 prominent international figures, including Nobel laureates, scholars and human rights activists, in an open letter demanded Jahanbegloo’s immediate release. Among the undersigned are Noam Chomsky, J.M. Coetzee, Shirin Ebadi, Umberto Eco, Jürgen Habermas, Timothy Garton Ash, Leszek Kolakowski, Antonio Negri, Richard Rorty, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Howard Zinn. [17] [18]
On June 13, Reuters reported from Tehran that Jahanbegloo was barred from seeing a lawyer during his interrogations. [19]
On July 10, the Council of the European Union issued another press release reiterating its concerns about the detention of Jahanbegloo:
On August 30, Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo was released from Evin prison on bail. He was released after four months of confinement. [22] [23]
[edit] See also
- Iranian philosophy
- Intellectual Movements in Iran
- History of fundamentalist Islam in Iran
- Daryoush Ashouri
