protested by hunger strike. His arrest was protested by the journalism associations the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which together represent over 18,000 publications in 100 countries. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. Later that same year, he was arrested again on June 15, this time with his eldest son Vahid Sazegara, on the order of Tehran's Public Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. Vahid Sazegara was released July 9, but Mohsen Sazegara went on to spend 114 days in custody and 79 days on a hunger strike, during which he lost almost 50 pounds of his body weight. This was especially troubling, since Sazegara suffers from severe heart problems, having had two heart operations within the previous few years. After his release from Evin Prison, he left Iran to seek medical attention in the United Kingdom. Continued activism In the United Kingdom he called for a referendum and launched an Internet petition, on which he gained the signatures of over 35,000 people. His continued calls for reform in Iran have led the regime to sentence him in absentia to seven years in prison, without clear charges. In March 2005, he left the UK to attend to a job opportunity in the United States at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a visiting scholar. Following a six-month term, he left the Washington Institute for Near East Policy for Yale University's Center for International and Area Studies. By the end of the educational year he left Yale University to work at Harvard University as a researcher on Iran. As of February 2010, Sazegara has been "preaching" a "message of nonviolent action on a nightly basis," through videos calling on Iranian dissidents to avoid fragmentation and unite behind former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. As of 2010, he was a visiting fellow at the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Sazegara is a devout Muslim, and advocates for a separation of religion and state in Iran. Notes and references External links Mohsen Sazegara's Weblog Mohsen Sazegara Freedom Collection interview BBC Radio 4: Taking a Stand BBC journalist Fergal Keane interviews Mohsen Sazegara about his life in a radio programme first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on December 14, 2010. 1955 births Living people Alumni of the University of London Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by