An open letter to Ahmadinejad – my green vote was not your black name

An Iranian poet and journalist, Naeimeh Doustdar was one of the millions of people who took part in the violent protests in Tehran in 2009. She was imprisoned shortly thereafter and stayed in the infamous Evin prison. Before the trial, she was able to leave Iran for exile in Malaysia and Dubai. Today, she continues her work as a guest writer in Malmö.

Read her open letter to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
She will also appear in an interview on Swedish Radio today, June 12 2013. 

About Naeimeh Doostdar Sanaye

Naeimeh Doostdar Sanaye is an Iranian journalist, author and human rights activist and is currently ICORN guest writer in Malmö City of Refuge. Naeimeh was born in Tehran and has a Masters in Persian Language and Literature. She took up journalism whilst still in her teens and has worked for magazines, newspapers and online media since 1997, focusing on social issues, politics and women’s rights. Naeimeh has been awarded national prizes for her journalism but since 2009 she has been arrested and harassed for her journalistic activities. As the Iranian government tightened its grip on freedom of expression her articles and scripts were censured before being published and she risked reprimands.

About the Dissident Blog 
The Dissident Blog publishes what the rulers want to delete. Swedish PEN’s The Dissident Blog wants to present the forbidden texts—the texts that can neither be written nor published in the writers’ own countries. They want to give these texts both a Swedish and an international audience and want to function as a link between writers in crisis zones and the established media. All texts are published in their original language, but also in Swedish and English. The Dissident Blog has been published regularly since 2011 by Swedish PEN with the support of SIDA and Statens Kulturråd (the Swedish Arts Council).