Former Imprisoned Iranian Students Write President Obama
Iranian student activist and dissident Ahmad Betebi was sentenced to death and severely tortured for years in the notorious Evin Prison in Iran. He escaped safely to the United States in late June.
During a break from prison, Batebi fled Iran traveling through a free Iraq to Austria and finally arriving in Washington DC.
During his studies at the University of Tehran Batebi gained international fame for his appearance on the July 17, 1999 cover of The Economist magazine, holding up a shirt splattered with the blood of a fellow protester.