Ganji has been called Iran's Vaclav Havel, Bobby Sands, and now he is called Iran's Boris Yeltsin.

Amir Taheri has an excellent article on Ganji. He writes, "Since 1979, when the mullas seized power in Tehran, an estimated 2.3 million Iranians have spent some time in prison because of their opposition to the regime. In a sense anybody who is somebody in most walks of life has had some experience of prison in the Islamic Republic. And that includes the Shiite clergy. More mullas have been imprisoned in the past 27 years than members of any other social group in Iran. The revolutionary regime has also executed over 100,000 of its real or imagined opponents and driven a further 4.5 million people into exile, without a second thought."

So, why has Ganji received special attention? According to Taheri, Ganji is pure product of the system itself but he has succeeded in liberating himself, morally and intellectually, from his Khomeinist illusions.

Time will tell whether he is Iran's Havel, Sands or Yeltsin.