Islamic Republic system in Iran, and wrote a detailed criticism of the Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of Islamic government as rule by Shia clerics, Government by Mandate (see below). As punishment for his criticism, Kadivar was sentenced to eighteen months in prison after being convicted by the Special Clerical Court in 1999, on charges of having spread false information about Iran's "sacred system of the Islamic Republic" and of helping enemies of the Islamic revolution, or as another observer put it, "for commenting on the contradiction between the revolution's aims to serve the people and the subsequent concentration of power in the hands of clerics." He was released from Evin Prison, on July 17, 2000. Kadivar was unrepentant on his release and is currently active within the various reform movements of Iran. His publications including books, articles and interviews were banned in Iran since 2009, and he was fired from his jobs in 2011. Kadivar has been in exile since 2007. In a 2004 interview, Kadivar told a journalist, "Every member of society and every member of government is subject to the law. No one can be above it. Everyone has the same rights, yet the root of the faqih is inequality. He assumes he is above it. ... It is time for the supreme leader to be subject to the constitution too. After all, the Supreme Leader doesn't come from God!" On the issue of clerics in government, he has said: "Our job as religious people is not politics. ... They are taking Iran backward, not toward the future." Books Kadivar is a prolific author and has published thirteen books by 2009, and eleven books since 2009, when his publication was banned in Iran. He has also been writing extensively in various Iranian journals and has over 200 articles to his name. One of his books is Human Rights and Reformist Islam (In Translation: Contemporary Thought in Muslim Contexts), 2021. Human rights and Islam Haqq al-Nass (The Right of People in Islam: Islam and Human Rights), Tehran, 2008, 439 pages. Mujazat-e Ertedad wa Azadi-ye Mazhab: Naqd-e Mujazat-e Ertedad wa Sabb al-Nabi ba Mawazin-e Feqh-e Estedlali (Apostasy, Blasphemy, & Religious Freedom in Islam: A Critique Based on Demonstrative Jurisprudence), 2014, 406 Pages Gottes Recht und Menschenrechte: Eine Kritik am historischen Islam, 2017 Islamic Political Thought Estizah-e Rahbari (Impeaching Iran's Supreme Leader on his Political Authority; Assessing the Supreme leader's 21 years