Mostafa Tajzadeh

Seyyed Mostafa Tajzadeh (سید مصطفی تاج‌زاده born 1956) is an Iranian progressive, reformist politician, and a member of Islamic Iran Participation Front (Jebhe-ye Mosharekat).

Political career

Tajzadeh served as the Political Vice Minister of the Ministry of Interior of Iran in the government of Mohammad Khatami, and under the Minister Abdollah Noori, since 1997, after being introduced to Noori by Gholamhossein Karbaschi and Mohammad Atrianfar. The first Iranian elections for the City and Village Councils of Iran happened under Tajzadeh. Later, he became an Adviser to the President of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, from November 21, 2004 until the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He started working in the Islamic Republic government as an employee of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in May 1982. He went up to became a vice minister when Mohammad Khatami was the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, but after Khatami resigned from the post, he was downgraded to an assistant librarian. He left the ministry after a while, and worked for the newspaper Hamshahri until 1997.

Right after June 12, 2009 Iran's presidential election, Tajzadeh was arrested. He was released from jail on March 10, 2010 (18 Esfand, 1388).

He was arrested again on 15 August 2010 and transferred to solitary cells inside IRGC's Ward 2-a at Evin Prison, banned from having visitations. Eleven months' detention inside solitary cells led to a deterioration of Tajzadeh's health. He was allowed six days of leave in June 2011, five days in August 2011, and one day of leave in March 2012, after which he was immediately transferred back to prison. Tajzadeh has embarked on several hunger strikes to protest inhumane prison conditions.

Tajzadeh has written several letters from prison which have angered the authorities who have in turn put him inside Evin Prison's Methadone Ward, a ward generally reserved for hardcore criminals and drug addicts. His wife, Fakhrossadat Mohtashamipour, was also arrested and detained for several weeks in 2011, after she engaged in activities to protest her husband's detention and to form a support group for prisoner families.

Tajzadeh was one of seven leading reformists who filed a lawsuit against several commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) for their alleged intervention in Iran’s rigged presidential elections.^[1]

Personal life

Tajzadeh is a Ph.D. student in political science from University of Tehran and has two daughters. His wife is Fakhrossadat Mohtashamipour, the cousin of cleric Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur. He has also lived in the United States for 31 months.

Amnesty International reported that he was arrested in June 2009, amidst the 2009 Iranian election protests.^[2]

References

External links

• Mostafa Tajzadeh's blog (in Persian)
• A short biography, Tajzadeh's short autobiography (in Persian)