When I say that I am opposed to this budget, everyone says, "Well, what do you think the United States should do?" My response is, "Why should the United States do anything?"
I have spent six years in prison, the last six years. Even if I was outside the prison, how much actual space was there for an investigative journalist to do his work in Iran? But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.
If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist...the entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.
When I talk about secularism, I'm talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.
I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions. The most important dichotomy that I make for a society is between those who support democracy and human rights, and those who oppose it. In a totalitarian state, the state views any act of an individual to be political in nature. For example, the clothing that a person wears in a modern state is a private affair whereas in the Islamic Republic all women are forced to wear the hijab (Islamic attire). When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act.
When I was on my hunger strike, and I was in a hospital, the guards who inflicted all manner of injustice against me, and all manner of hardship...I could witness that as a result of Ahmadinejad, they lived in a dream. They believed that paradise is around the corner and that all their demands shall be met.
We have two kinds of oppression. Oppression that is universal - everyone in Iran is subject to it. But everyone has also their own, unique way of experiencing this oppression.
The number of the opposition has certainly increased [in Iran]. There is more disgruntlement, but because there is no media, the voice of this opposition is not heard outside Iran.
The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm, we believe in equal rights for all people in all nations. If Israel, the United States, Russia, Pakistan, other countries, China, have the right to have a nuclear program and nuclear bomb, Iran, too, must have that same right. Now, at the realm of realpolitik, because there is a global consensus against Iran, and because there are all manner of dangers facing Iran, I am opposed to this program.
We've had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system? Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.