Akbar Atri

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Akbar Atri is a leading proponent of democracy and human rights in Iran. Mr. Atri joined the Iranian student movement in 1995 and was elected to a central leadership role in Tahkim Vahdat, Iran’s largest and most prominent student organization, annually from 1997 to 2005. He is a founding member of Iranian Students for Democracy and Human Rights. He spoke hundreds of times at universities throughout the country, organized countless discussion forums and led student protests in favor of freedom of expression and democracy. Atri has been imprisoned, fined and physically abused at the hands of the regime's militias for his human rights activism. Mr. Atri left Iran in 2005 and in the same year was sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison for defiling the Supreme Leader and for other crimes against the Iranian regime.

Mr. Atri believes that a secular, liberal democratic government is the best means for securing the human rights of all Iranians, regardless of their gender, religious views, political aspirations or lifestyle. He believes in an an open, tolerant society that respects the dignity of all human beings.

Mr. Atri is a proponent of free market capitalism and strongly opposes corrupt, rentier economies such as that in Iran today.

A fierce critic of radical Islam, its violence and degradation of the rights of men and women, Mr. Atri serves on the board of the Committee on the Present Danger, and American organization devoted to countering terrorism and the spread of radical Islam.

In struggling to achieve justice and the rule of law within the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he co-authored a petition which calls for a national referendum on a new constitution. The referendum would provide Iranians the means to demand a new constitution based upon democratic values and universal principles of human rights. Since publication of this petition, more than thirty-five thousand civil society activists, human rights organizations, academics, journalists and others from all walks of life have signed the petition and joined the cause.

Since leaving Iran, Mr. Atri has spoken on his country’s human rights situation and its civic led movements for democracy at universities, human rights organizations, and conferences worldwide. Mr. Atri has been a regular source of information on the Iranian student movement for international media outlets such as CNN and the BBC since the mid-1990s. He has written for several Iranian reformist papers as well as American publications such as American Spectator and The Wall Street Journal.

On March 2,2006 he and Ali Afshari were invited to give a talk on human rights and democracy in Iran at a panel discussion organized at the U.S. Capitol. The event was sponsored by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Iranian Students for Democracy and Human Rights. Their talk provided information on human rights abuses in Iran and progress of Iran’s democracy movement.

Mr. Atri earned his BA and MA degrees in political science at Allame Tabatabaei and Mofid universities, respectively. Atri is from the Azeri ethnic minority and speaks Azeri, Persian and English.

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