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Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10027/iran-ayatollah-boroujerdi
Iran's Mandela
(Gatestone Institute) Majid Rafizadeh - Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi is a high-ranking dissident Iranian clergyman who has called for separation of religion and state, and has condemns Islamic radicalism, fundamentalism, and terrorism. Boroujerdi is known as Iran's Mandela. He was arrested in Tehran on October 8, 2006, along with more than 300 of his followers, and was initially sentenced to death before his sentence was commuted to 11 years in prison. He had been found guilty of "waging war against God" and publicly calling political leadership by the clergy unlawful. In a 2014 letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, he wrote: "I have been imprisoned and tortured for the past eight years for simply speaking out against political Islam and the cruel crimes committed by the government of Iran against its citizens due to implementation of religious laws....Iran's natural resources along with its national wealth are being spent - as a matter of priority - on funding Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and Iraq by the authorities while Iran's own citizens are enduring widespread poverty."