Team

Omid Montazeri

Research associate

Omid Montazeri is an essayist, journalist, and former political prisoner. His main field of research is the intellectual and political legacy of communism and the left in Iran, with a particular focus on the period from the 1960s onwards, especially in relation to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Since 2018, he has been a broadcast journalist with the BBC. He co-wrote a documentary exploring the impact of the October Revolution on the Iranian left.

From 2021 to 2022, Omid was the BBC’s on-field correspondent during the trial of Hamid Nouri in Stockholm, covering one of the most significant legal cases related to the 1988 mass executions of Iranian political prisoners. His coverage resulted in the documentary Iran: Catching a Killer for BBC World.

He studied law at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran from 2004 to 2009. Following his arrest during the December 2009 protests, he faced a mass show trial and was subsequently expelled from university. From 2013 to 2018, he worked as a journalist for Radio Zamaneh, an independent Persian-language media organisation in exile, based in Amsterdam.

In addition to his journalism, Omid served on the board of directors for the The Association For Freedom Thought, a civil and non-profit organisation composed of scholars and researchers that organised webinars and conferences on philosophical and social studies (2016-2018).

Between 2020 and 2022, he worked with the ‘Off-site project’ as an independent researcher and expert adviser on state-building and violence in post-revolutionary Iran, as well as on counter-archiving efforts.

Omid’s research continues to delve into the formation of the nation-state in post-revolutionary Iran and the fate of opposition groups.

Press

BBC Persian

Documentary: October Revolution and The Left in Iran

Director: Nastaran Rabbani — Mehdi Shabani

Co-author: Omid Montazeri

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BBC World

Documentary: Iran: Catching a Killer

Director: Omid Montazeri

[More]