Mohsen Sazegara (; born 5 January 1955) calls himself as Iranian journalist and pro-democracy political activist. He was the founder of IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) after the revolution in 1979. He held several offices in the Government of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. He applied to become a candidate for President of Iran in the 2001 election but was declined. His reformist policies clashed with the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, eventually resulting in his arrest in early 2003. Following his release in August 2003, he moved to the United Kingdom for medical attention. He currently resides in the United States. Early career In the late-1970s, Sazegara was an undergraduate student at both Sharif University of Technology in Iran and the Illinois Institute of Technology, during which time he was a leader of the student movement against the Shah. During the 1979 revolution, he returned to Iran and served as a founder of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the managing director of the National Radio of Iran (1979–1981). In the 1980s, Sazegara served as political deputy in the prime minister's office, deputy minister of heavy industries, chairman of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran, and vice minister of planning and budget. Sazegara became disillusioned with the Islamic Republic government. Following the end of the Iran–Iraq War in 1988 and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, he turned down further government posts, saying that his refusal was in order to continue his study of history. Studies and reform Sazegara earned his master's degree in history at Shahid Beheshti University in Iran, and went on to complete his doctoral thesis on religious intellectuals and the Islamic revolution at the University of London 1996. After the 1997 election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, Sazegara published several reformist newspapers including Jameah, Tus, and Golestan-e-Iran, all of which were closed by the hard-line regime. Believing that reform would be impossible with the current Iranian Constitution, he launched a campaign to hold a referendum on the constitution. His drive to amend the constitution gained strong support among many students. In 2001, Dr. Sazegara became a presidential candidate; however, his candidacy was refused by the Guardian Council, reportedly because his opinions were "not congruent with the wishes of the Guardian Council and the Supreme Leader." Arrest On Tuesday, February 18, 2003, Sazegara was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence, and held for five days, during which he