On July 12, 2005 the White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement that the US president, George W. Bush, called on Iran to release Ganji "immediately and unconditionally." "Mr. Ganji is sadly only one victim of a wave of repression and human rights violations engaged in by the Iranian regime," "His calls for freedom deserve to be heard. His valiant efforts should not go in vain. The president calls on all supporters of human rights and freedom, and the United Nations, to take up Ganji's case and the overall human rights situation in Iran." "Mr. Ganji, please know that as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you," the statement said
In his recent leave in June 2005 Ganji participated in interviews with several news agencies, criticizing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, and asking for his office to be put to public vote [2]. This led to a ruling by Saeed Mortazavi, the general prosecutor of Tehran, to arrest him again because of "illegal interviews". He returned to prison voluntarily on June 11, 2005 and started an indefinite hunger strike.
The Berlin conference was organized under the title "Iran after the elections" after the Majlis elections in February 2000, which resulted in a huge victory by reformist candidates. The gathering was termed "anti-Islamic" and "anti-revolutionary" by Iranian state TV, IRIB, which broadcast part of the conference on April 18, 2000. He was accused of having "damaged national security" and initially sentenced to ten years followed by five years internal exile, which meant he would be kept in a specific city other than Tehran and could not leave the country.
On May 15, 2001 an appeal court reduced his 10-year sentence to six months and overturned his additional sentence of five years' internal exile. However, the Tehran prosecuter, challenged the appeal court decision and brought new charges against him in connection with newspaper articles he had written prior to April 2000, and his possession of photocopies of foreign newspapers.
On July 16, 2001 he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment on charges of "collecting confidential information harmful to national security and spreading propaganda against the Islamic system".
He has written extensively as a journalist in a series of reformist newspapers, many of which were shut down by the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Collections of his articles appeared in books, notably, "The Dungeon of Ghosts" and "The Red Eminence, The Grey Eminences" focusing on the involvement of the former President of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and his Ministry of Intelligence, Ali Fallahian, in a series of killings of writers and dissidents.
He has continued to write in prison. His writings in prison are smuggled out and widely distributed, especially on the web. Most notably he wrote a Republican Manifesto in six chapters in March 2002 laying out the basis of his proposal for a fully-fledged democratic republic for Iran. In particular he argued that all elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran must be boycotted. He later wrote a second book [3] of his Republican Manifesto in May 2005, ahead of the ninth Presidential elections in Iran, specifically arguing for a complete boycott of the presidential elections."
Hmmm. I have read what is on http://freeganji.blogspot.com/ and maybe it is just me, but it looks like this guy Ganji sure quotes Ayatollah Khomeini a lot. For instance, on this page (http://freeganji.blogspot.com/2005/07/letter-to-ayatollah-montazeri.html), he cites Khomeini:
Mr. Khomeini says: "Any individual from the people of a nation has the right to directly question, in the public, the ruler of the muslims and the ruler has to give a convincing answer; otherwise, if he, ie. the ruler, has acted against his Islamic duties, he is automatically removed from the office of the ruler." (Ayatollah Khomeini, Sahife-i Nur, vol. 4, p. 190)
And on this page ( http://freeganji.blogspot.com/2005/06/republican-manifesto-ii-2.html) , here Ganji is citing Ayatollah Khomeini as
In the next step, the Council of Guardians disqualifies numerous people by illegal excuses; because they are not practically committed to Islam, the Constitution, Velayat-i Faqih, Ayatollah Khomeini, etc. It is in this step that the Council of Guardians eliminates serious rivals of the authoritarian faction.
And on this page ( http://freeganji.blogspot.com/2005/06/republican-manifesto-ii-8_17.html ):
Any individual has a right to choose his desired system and if he did not like the established system, a right to publicly oppose it and by attracting others in this way and through peaceful means establish his desired system. Didn't Ayatollah Khomeini do the same in his speech in the Behesht-e Zahra [cemetery] on February 1, 1979 and theorize it for the future generations? This law is unjust and unfair and the rulers of the country want to deprive the people from their human right in any possible way.
Now, I myself am not impressed by anyone who is so much of a fan of Ayatollah Khomeini that he thinks Khomeini is some sort of authority figure. If Ganji showed up here on Free Republic quoting Khomeini as an authority, my own guess is that he would not last very long before being ZOTted.
But maybe I am wrong. I haven't tracked down everything that Ganji has published on the web. Maybe a freeper with more knowledge about this guy can show where he condemns Khomeini. Or maybe he just secretly denounces Khomeini, but I certainly don't see any evidence of it on this website, or any other place that I have seen mention of him.