Fariborz Raisdana

Raisdana died on 16 March 2020 because of COVID-19 complications in Tehran Pars hospital after spending six days in the hospital. He was buried in his birthplace, Ebrahimabad.

Raisdana was arrested on 21 March 2012 in Tehran after criticizing the Iranian subsidy reform plan in an interview with BBC Persian and given a one-year sentence at Evin Prison, for a series of charges including "membership in the Writer's Association, preparing seditious announcements against the regime, giving interviews to BBC and VOA, and accusing the Islamic Republic of abusing prisoners and holding show trials". Individuals and associations such as the Iranian Writers' Association, The Middle East Economic Association, and The Workers' Rights Defenders spoke out against his arrest.

Fariborz Raisdana (Persian: فریبرز رئیس‌دانا; 19 January 1945 – 16 March 2020) was an Iranian economist, socialist, activist, professor, and a member of the Iranian Writers' Association (Persian: کانون نویسندگان ایران). He was the author of numerous articles and books, including Applied Development Economics; Money and Inflation; Political Economy of Development, and Globalization.

Raisdana was born in Tehran on January 19, 1945. His father, Haji Khan, was a Lab Doctor in Tehran and was originally from Ebrahimabad (Buin Zahra) and as such Fariborz would spend most of the summers during his early years in Ebrahimabad. He would later attend Molavi Elementary and Hakim Nezami High School in Tehran. Being the child of a "Khan" and his easy and happy upbringing in Tehran and even in his ancestral Village of Ebrahimabad as opposed to the widespread poverty and hardship in Imperial Iran was the primary reason he became interested in topics of social injustice.