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Ben Behrouzi: 25 Years After Escaping Iran
 Persecution that is unfortunately picking up once again in today’s time
It’s hard to imagine that its been almost 25 years since my parents secretly smuggled many of ourfamily members out of Iran due to brutal religious persecution.Persecutionthat is unfortunately picking up once again in todays time. A reader asked me to provide more info about this portion of my  backgroundandso I offered this short post.The1979 revolution of Iranput in place a theocracy that among many otherhorrific things, directly executed over 200 Bahai's, destroyed Bahai holy places, burned thousands of homes, denied everyone access to higher education andspread mass propoganda labeling all non Muslims, specifically the Bahai's, asspies and terrorists. As a result Iran's lower class was stimulated into adangerous mob that resulted in many more killings and threatened increasingharm in addition to the harm already offered directly by the new IslamicGovernment. So, in fear of our lives, we were forced to secretly flee the country,as simply leaving was not a friendly option.I was about 4.5 years old when my parents, Ahdieh and Anush, were braveenough to initiate the smuggling of our family out of the country through thedesert, at night, by jeep and camel into Pakistan. Although the smugglers wereable to successfully and safely put us past the border, they stole every valublething my family had. We lived in Lahore Pakistan for 18 months before weattained our Visa into the US and into Alaska. After 18 months in
 
Saint Petersburg Alaska, my parents moved us to Central Valley California, whereI grew up.I wish I could say the rest is history, but its not. Over the last 2 years Iran'sgovernment has begun similar behavior to its past by systematically kidnapping,imprisoning, and scheduling for execution more and more minority groupsnationwide without any access to a lawyer. The situation in Iran is once againgrowing progressively worse and everyone who is intimately aware of the eventsof the past is once again gravely concerned.
About the Author:Ben Behrouzi
Ben Behrouzi, Founder of DotNext and Co-founder of Reply.com, is a serial entrepreneur from theSan Francisco Bay Area.He has been fortunate enough to be a part of building over 25 multimillion dollar startups and onlineservices from the ground up, including LeapFish.com, Reply.com, iMotors, AgentConnect, iCastleand others. Our companies have produced hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, several milliondollars in profits, served hundreds of thousands of clients & customers nationwide and giventhousands back to communities and charities.In 2001 he co-founded Reply.com at the age of 20 and lead the full detailed architecture andengineering of Reply.com's service products and state-of-the-art technology infrastructure. Hisefforts have produced over 20 multi-million dollar profitable service provider products, services andtechnology platforms including Reply.com, iMotors.com, AgentConnect.com, CarClub.com,OpenAuto.com, RealtyNow.com, iCastle.com and others to grow the company to over $30M inannual revenues and $17M in funding prior to my leaving in 2006.In 2006 he founded DotNext, a venture firm dedicated to creating and operating a variety of Internet companies that challenge the status quo. With nearly 100 employees and multi-millionannual revenues, we own and operate brands including LeapFish.com, iHype.com, Ziddler andothers currently growing inside of DotNext.
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