Background
Entezam was born into middle-class family in Tehran in 1933.
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Abbas Amir-Entezam
Edit ProfileEducation
He studied electro mechanical engineering at University of Tehran and graduated in 1955. He then went to the United States. and completed his postgraduate education at the University of California in Berkeley.
Career
In 1981 he was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of spying for the United States., a charge critics suggest was a cover for retaliation against his early opposition to theocratic government in Iran. He is now "the longest-held political prisoner in the Islamic Republic of Iran". According to Fariba Amini, as of 2006 he has "been in jail for 17 years and in and out of jail for the last ten years, altogether for 27 years." In 1956, Entezam left Iran for study at A.S.T.E.F. Institute (Paris).
After graduation, he remained in the United States and worked as an entrepreneur.
Around 1970 Entezam"s mother was dying and he returned to Iran to be with her. In 1979, the Shah was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution.
Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, recently returned to Iran, appointed Bazargan as prime minister of the provisional revolutionary government. "Bazargan asks Entezam to be the deputy prime minister and the official spokesperson for the new government." According to Entezam"s website: Following the orders of the Prime Minister, Entezam sets out to rebuild the relationship between the United States and the post-revolutionary Iran.
He retains diplomatic contacts with the United States embassy, advocating for normalization of the relationship between the two countries.
While serving as deputy prime minister in April 1979 Entezam actively advocated the retirement of army officers from the rank of brigadier general. In 1979, Entezam "succeeded in having the majority of the cabinet sign a letter opposing the Assembly of Experts", which was drawing up the new theocratic constitution where democratic bodies were subordinant to clerical bodies. His theocratic opponents attacked him and in August 1979 Bazargan "appointed Entezam to become Iran"s ambassador to Denmark." Bazargan asked Entezam, who had been serving as ambassador to Sweden, to come back quickly to Tehran.
After coming back to Tehran, he was arrested in December 1979 because of allegations based on some documents retrieved from United States. embassy takeover, and received lifetime prison from court.
He was released in 1998, but in less than 3 months, he was arrested again because of an interview with Tous daily newspaper, one of the reformist newspapers of the time. In smuggled letters, Entezam has related that on three separate occasions, he had been taken blindfolded to the execution chamber - once being kept "there two full days while the Imam contemplated his death warrant." He has spent 555 days in solitary confinement, and in cells so "overcrowded that inmates took turns sleeping on the floor - each person rationed to thee hours of sleep every 24 hours." He suffered permanent ear damage, skin disease, and spinal deformities." He has attacked the regimes saying This regime makes it a religion of destruction, death, and torture.
He has always denied all the allegations that have been put against him in his trial and asks for a retrial.
Achievements
Connections
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Born
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Nationality
Iran -
Political Party
National Front