Akbar Ganji

Besides having a name that sounds like "Ghandi," this man serves as a reminder that freedom is not free in Iran, where he is currently in prison for writing about the Iranian government's murder of political dissidents in 1998. From what we know, he is constantly in a state of torture and deprivation from medical assistance. His own words are heartwrenching:

"What the Islamic prosecutor doesn't know is that Ganji may die, but the love of freedom, and the thirst for political justice will never die. Ganji may die, but humanism and the love of one's fellow man, and the hope and expectations for a better future, will never die.

"I will spend my time in solitary, but my heart will continue to beat for freedom. And some of the time I will hear prisoners cry for the windows of their solitary cells to be opened, to let the sun in."

Read the rest of his accounts... they are guaranteed to give you plenty of food for thought. Also, if someone asks me what we are doing in the Middle East right now, I hope that this case (among many others) will be sufficient to represent the immense longing for freedom and justice that we are trying to promote over there.