Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi is an Iranian writer, film producer and human rights activist.

Life

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi was born in Tehran in 1961 to Iranian journalist parents. She attended the American University of Paris as well as at the IDHEC, the French institute of higher cinematic studies. In 1982 she came to the United States and continued studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She studied film and art history as well as linguistics and semiotics. Banafsheh speaks 7 languages including Persian and has worked in the film industry, as production assistant and second assistant director on several feature and documentary films for the big screen and HBO.fact|date=May 2008

In 1993 Banafsheh returned to the world of TV production, as a freelance line producer of documentary films about the assassinations of Iranian writers, activists and scholars who opposed the regime of Iran at the hands of the secret police.fact|date=May 2008

In 2001 Banafsheh's father was abducted by the forces of the secret police of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for the 4th time in 22 years.fact|date=May 2008

Banafsheh regularly writes for The National Review, Defense & Foreign Affairs and Front Page Magazine. She has appeared on C-Span's Washington Journal and Voice of America TV.

Banafsheh is also the editor of the English department of the website [http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/ Iran Press News] .

Activism

In 2007 she participated in St Petersburg Secular Islam Summit along with other thinkers and reformers of Islam such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan and Irshad Manji. [http://www.secularislam.org/blog/post/SI_Blog/21/The-St-Petersburg-Declaration] The group released the St Petersburg Declaration which urges world governments to, among other things, reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, which they believe to be in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

References