[custom_adv] Dr. Mohammad Maleki, one of the most enduring and noteworthy figures standing in opposition to the regime, continues to directly challenge the country’s rulers even at the age of 80. [custom_adv] After the Islamic Revolution, Maleki was the first dean of the University of Tehran. Having been a member of the national resistance movement after the 1953 coup, he was also active in the student movement while pursuing his veterinary studies at the University of Tehran. [custom_adv] At the advent of the revolution in 1979, he had a significant role in the University’s professors’ strike. He resigned in response to the Cultural Revolution, however, and went on to openly criticize it. This led to his arrest and death sentence, which was later commuted to imprisonment. After his release, he was arrested again in 2000 and 2009, becoming Iran’s oldest political prisoner in the process. [custom_adv] Mohammad Maleki has been a member of several groups and has never limited himself to a particular organization. Prior to the revolution, he was a member of groups and parties such as the National Youth Organization of Shemiran, the Proletariat and Third Force Party, the National Resistance Movement, and the Society in Defense of Freedom and Human Rights. [custom_adv] Since the revolution, he has been a part of the Council of the Religious-Nationalist Coalition, the National Peace Council, and the Council of National Unity for Democracy and Human Rights. Maleki clearly and courageously expresses his opinions in open letters, even asking for the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in one published in November 2012. [custom_adv] Mohammad Maleki was born on July 11, 1933 in the town of Tajrish, now part of Tehran. He is married to Qodsi Mir-Moez, with whom he has four children: Maryam, Mogeh, Abuzar, and Ammar. The towns of Tajrish and Shemiran housed two very different sets of residents during Maleki’s childhood. [custom_adv] While some were farmers, gardeners, manual laborers, or owned small businesses, others were ministers, lawyers, ambassadors, and financiers who lived there for its pleasant climate. Maleki’s family fell into the first group; his father, who had a small pastry shop, was known as Mash Hossein the Confectioner. [custom_adv] It was during Maleki’s studies at the Shahpour School in Tajrish that he was confronted with the local class divide, which partially drove him to pursue his political and social activism. [custom_adv] The post-World War II emergence of the movement to nationalize oil industry pushed Maleki toward greater political activism. In 1950, Maleki, who supported Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, founded the National Youth Organization of Shemiran in order to fight for independence, freedom, and equality. [custom_adv] He later joined the Toilers Party of the People, but sided with Khalil Maleki and others (known as the “Third Force”) and diverged from the party. After the August 19, 1953 coup against Mosaddegh, he started working with the Shemiran branch of the National Resistance Movement.
