Asadi, Houshang

The winner of the International Human Rights Book Award 2011 Houshang Asadi is an Iranian journalist and author who was born in 1951 in the Iran. He had been imprisoned under the regime of the Shah and even shared a cell with Khamenei and Mehdi Karroubi for some time. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the persecution of Asadi continued. He was imprisoned in the infamous Moshtarek Prison, spent two years in solitary confinement, was sentenced to death and finally could escape to Paris where he has lived since 2003. While living in French exile, he decided to write his book “Letters to my torturer”, which describes his experiences in Iranian prisons.