Emadeddin Baghi

Emadeddin Baghi (; born 25 April 1962 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. Baghi was rearrested on 28 December 2009 on charges related to an interview with Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri. Baghi was released and then again rearrested on 5 December 2010.

Early life Baghi was born in 1962. After the revolution, he studied theology and sociology in Qom and Tehran, respectively. His journalism career started in 1983, and by the 1990s, Baghi was working as the chief editor of the reformist newspaper Faith.

Two newspapers at which Baghi worked were banned by the Iranian government: Faith in 2000, His books on the Chain Murders were also banned.

Baghi has also written extensively about the death penalty, of which he is an active opponent. The United Nations and other international human rights groups have relied heavily his work, particularly on juveniles sentenced to death, for their own reports. Baghi estimates that more than 10,000 people have been executed in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. He served two years of that sentence, and one year was suspended.

Baghi's imprisonment was condemned by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.

Baghi was among the numerous journalists and reformists detained by the government of Iran on 28 December 2009 in the wake of clashes between demonstrators and police at the Ashura protests. In August 2010, Baghi was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a five-year ban on political activity. On 22 September, opposition websites reported that Baghi had been sentenced to an additional six years' imprisonment for "propaganda against the state" and other charges for having broadcast an interview with dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri on BBC Persian. Amnesty International again named him a prisoner of conscience.

Five years of the sentence was later overturned by an appeals court, and Baghi was released on in June 2011. In the months prior to his release, he and other prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest the deaths of dissidents Haleh Sahabi and Hoda Saber

Homophobic views On 27 January 2021, Emadeddin Baghi called a Conchita Wurst's photo "disgusting" on Twitter. Later in the same thread, he compared homosexual people with murderers and argued while homosexuals are disgusting, one can still defend their rights. Many Iranian scholars and activists reacted to his tweets, and argued that Emadeddin Baghi is a homophobic person who is not credible to be called a human rights activist. On 28 January 2021, Emadeddin Baghi's Twitter account was suspended due to his homophobic tweets.

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. The following year he won a human rights award from the French government.

In 2009, Baghi won the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. This award is given annually in Geneva by a coalition of 10 international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Front Line, to a leading defender of human rights who is currently in danger. The Iranian government again denied Baghi permission to attend the award ceremony.