you are either misinformed on Akbar Ganji or trying to misinform. He did work for the revolutionary guard in the early days after the revolution in Iran but was not an interrogator. Moreover, he is not a "reformist" any more in the sense it is understood in the Iranian politics. He has parted from those views long before he went to prison 6 years ago. He is the real deal, a thinking political dissident. His views might have changed but that can't be hled against anyone, as change is the essence of the world. Ahmad Batebi was never a dissident. Although he was brutally mistreated and turned into a symbol of injustice and mistreatment of students in the dorm attacks of 1999, after being arrested for a picture of him with a bloody shirt raised over his head on the cover of the Economist, no one even knows what kind of political thought he advocates. He is what he is, a statue of the student movement but not more.

I am quite informed, otherwise I'd not write about him.

I have been told the same thing from several friends in Iran, many of which are forced to blog anonymously because the regime is controlling them ( two of them were arrested and then released ).

Naturally, liberals (quite nearly the rest of "the world") don't care about those events because they do not further their political beliefs. We mustn't allow ourselves make the mistake of assuming they actually have principles.

And God bless your friends in Iran. They're on my prayer list now.