Camelia Entekhabifard

Camelia Entekhabifard (also Camelia E. Fard or Camelia Entekhabi-Fard, Persian: کاملیا انتخابی فرد‎, born 1973 in Tehran) is an Iranian journalist and author who now lives in New York City.

Initially interested in poetry and painting, she became a journalist for the daily Zan. In 1999 she conducted research on women earning money in the Iranian city of Qom, a center for Shi'a scholarship and pilgrimage, by engaging in temporary marriage with pilgrims and religious scholars, in what she called a thinly veiled form of prostitution. This work resulted in her being imprisoned for 11 weeks in Towhid Prison. She moved to the United States and in 2001 wrote a piece in the Village Voice about these issues.[1]

After she published an article with James Ridgeway in the Village Voice in December 2001 criticizing the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the organization replied with a letter to the editor, alleging "shameful ties [...] between Camelia Fard and Iran's ruling mullahs" and claiming that she is a "well-known friend of Mullah Abtahi".[2]

She has since reported on Iran and Afghanistan for AP, Reuters, the Village Voice and Mother Jones. Her book Camelia: Save Yourself by Telling the Truth—a Memoir of Iran (ISBN 1583227199) was published in March 2007. In the book she relates that her mother had sympathized with Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, and that Camelia had initiated a romance with her abusive interrogator which led to her early release from prison.[3]

Camelia is also Independent Persian's Editor in Chief[4].