Faraj Sarkohi

Faraj Sarkohi ( Persian: فرج سرکوهی ), (other spellings: Faradj, Faraj, and Sarkouhi, Sarkoohi, Sarkuhi ) ( born November 3, 1947 in Shiraz ) is an Iranian journalist and literary critic. He was co-founder and editor in chief of the Iranian journal Adineh.

Life

Early life, studies and prison

Faraj Sarkohi spent the school in Shiraz. He studied social sciences and Persian literature in Tabriz. There he was one of the group to Samad Behrangi. He published the student magazine Adineh. Due to various activities against the Shah and numerous articles critical of the regime, he was sentenced in 1966 to three months and in 1967 to one year in prison. In 1971 he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. 1978, shortly before the Islamic Revolution, he came in the wake of amnesty waves with the last group of political prisoners.

After the Revolution

After his release, and in the brief period of relative political freedoms he wrote for the magazines Mossavar Tehran and Iran. After the suppression of political forces and the prohibition of all non- government-related journals by the Islamic regime he retired involuntarily back several years from public life.

Adineh

In 1985 he founded with Massoud Behnoud, Sirus Alinejad and Golamhossein Zakeri the magazine Adineh. From 1988 to 1996 he was editor in chief of Adineh, which is the most important independent magazine for art, society and politics in Iran in the 80s and 90s. Besides his work as editor in chief, he wrote many reviews and essays and interviewed key Iranian figures such as Hossein Alizadeh, Ahmad Schamlou, Huschang Golschiri, Alireza Espahbod, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Mehdi Bazargan, Parviz Natel - Khanlari, etc. Sarkohi was involved in the creation of the Commission on the review of the Persian writing and publication of the results of this Commission in Adineh.

Writers' Union

Sarkohi was instrumental in the re-formation of the Writers' Association since 1980. The activities of the Writers' Union culminated in 1994 in an open letter, which was famous in Iran under the name "Text of the 134 ". In this letter, requested 134 Iranian writers, journalists, translators, poets, etc. more speech and press freedom in Iran. Sarkohi was one of the eight persons ( the others were: Huschang Golschiri, Sima Kuban, Baraheni Reza, Mohammad Mokhtari, Kushan Mansour, Mohammad Mohammad, Mohammad Khalili ) in the " Commission of Eight" of the Association crucial in the development of writing and collection of signatures involved.

Arrest and exile

Sarkohi was suspended because of his work as editor in chief of Adineh and its function in the writers' association constant repression by the regime and was temporarily arrested several times. In 1996 he was on his way to Germany, where he wanted to visit his family, kidnapped still in Iran by the Iranian secret ( Vezarate Ettelaat Va Amniate Keshwar ). Official Iranian sites claiming Sarkohi would be doing well arrived in Germany. After 48 days' imprisonment and torture in an unknown place, he was released for a short time in which he claimed in a press conference forced to have returned after a trip to Europe to Iran. A few weeks later, he was arrested with the accusation of wanting to leave the country illegally. In his short time outside the prison he wrote a letter to his wife in Germany, " The sufferings letter from Faraj Sarkohi " later became known under the name. In it he described the repression of intellectuals and writers in Iran and the truth and the circumstances of his arrest. Due to his wife, international protests on the part of various human rights organizations, but also some Western governments to the efforts he was not executed but sentenced to one year in prison. Worldwide public protests ( as the then German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel sat in two letters to his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Velayati personally Sarkohi a ) the Iranian government finally moved to grant Sarkohi after his release in 1998 an exit permit. The story of his arrest was brought by various parties to the Mykonos assassination and process itself, which was negotiated at the time in Berlin. It has been suggested that the Iranian regime would affect his arrest the outcome of the trial in his favor.

Life in Germany

Sarkohi traveled to Germany, where he first found shelter in Frankfurt am Main as a guest of the " cities of refuge ". From 2000 to 2006 he was a fellow assisted by PEN Center Germany project "Writers in Exile".

He is an honorary member of PEN Center Germany, where since 2006 the human rights commissioner.

He writes in various German magazines such as Time, the Süddeutsche Zeitung NZZ, and the articles on Iranian culture and politics. In the Persian- language news portal Radio Farda appear several times in the week articles, essays and reviews from him. He writes for the website BBC Persian.

Works

• Naghshi az Rouzegar ( A sketch of Destiny ), 1990, Shiva Publishing, Tehran
• Shab -e -e dardmand arezumandi (painful night of hope ), 1999, Baran Verlag, Stockholm
• Yas -o- the (lilac and Sense ), 2002, Baran Verlag, Stockholm
• The Yellow -ripened lemons, in: meaning and form, issue 3/2001, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin

Prices

About Sarkohi

Look Europe, play by Ghazi Rabihavi, directed and participation: Harold Pinter.

Swell

• Author
• Journalist (Iran)
• Iranian
• Born in 1947
• Man