Saeed Hajjarian

Saeed Hajjarian is the most consequential reformist strategist of the Khatami era and the publisher of the investigative newspaper Sobh-e Emroz. He had an extraordinary trajectory: from revolutionary intelligence officer who helped storm the US Embassy in 1979, to deputy Minister of Intelligence (1984–1989), to reformist political architect who theorised 'pressure from below, negotiation from above' as the strategy for incremental democratisation. When Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 Hajjarian became his chief political advisor; he was also elected to Tehran's City Council in 1999. His newspaper Sobh-e Emroz published Akbar Ganji and Emadeddin Baghi's landmark investigations into the chain murders of 1998, forcing the government to admit Ministry of Intelligence responsibility. On 12 March 2000, he was shot in the face outside the Tehran City Council building by a Basij gunman (Saeed Asgar). The bullet lodged in his neck and left him permanently disabled — largely wheelchair-bound, with severe neurological damage. After the 2009 Green Movement protests he was arrested despite his disability and held in deteriorating health in Evin Prison.