Iranian of the Day

Bibliomania

I do not see any evidence that he acted in order to expunge non-Islamic history. His apparent motive was to acquire illustrations and maps for his own collection, and he added the pages taken to his private copies of the same works. 

There is a follow up article, summarising many of the points of this case, in the Fine Books and Collectors magazine:

//www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/200902/crimes-1.phtml

much more sinister than theft

Some of the comments here completely miss the point. The pages were removed and destroyed in order to rewrite history to suit the mad mullahs of Iran.

Very very shocking and a wake-up call to anyone complacent about the forces confronting western democracies.

//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politic...

I think he is definitely

I think he is definitely among the Pan-Iranists, those who want to fake the world and say that Iran is only land of the Persians. But we all know that persians are just 40% of the Iran, and in the last 1000 years there have been just Turkish imperias in Iran.
I am sure that Mr. Hakimzadeh was trying to omit traces of the non-persians from those historical books. Shame on Pan Iranist and new persian Fashists !!

Theiving rich sleezebag

I wish this man had commited this crime in a less forgiving country !! We could display his amputated hands in one of our museums then.
A pox on him.

Re: Farhad Hakimzadeh

This is really sad; although Mr. Hakimzadeh is not convicted nevertheless it makes you wonder what is happening with this organization. If look in Google for Mr. Alaghband who is the man with the money behind this organization has was in trouble for authority including arrest (he was not charged either); but I am ashamed of it as an Iranian!

SHOULDN'T WE?

shouldn't we nominate him as an idiot of the year? couldn't he find a copy machine or what??? What a loser. I don't care what his excuses are. Ripping pages off a book?? that plain stupid.

King of thieves

Thief that steals from another thief is king of thieves, nonetheless still a thief!

I'm ashamed

WoW I can't believe some of us are actually supporting what this man has done!!! We are all talking about how west has done horrible things to other nations, well if we know their actions were horrible and wrong why would we do the same?!?! for example if we know stealing is wrong, and someone steals from us, does it mean it's OK for us to do the same to him? Absolutely not!

Self-Plundering

I not only second the nomination of this fellow for the "Iranian of the Year", but also want to suggest to share that honor with all the above commentators who think this is an act of retaliation against the British! For how many more decades if not centuries Iranians want to "plunder" their own history, culture, and people in the name of fighting the enemy?! God bless the ignorant and destructive nationalism of diaspora!

Iranian of the night

Day or night, this guy has put us on shame. Let's not glorify his stupid act, but hope that he can redeem himself, afterwards with good deeds and apologies.

More on the story from the

More on the story from the Guardian: //www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/21/britis...

so what?

For centuries west plundered and robbed rest of the world out of natural resources and cultural heritage
now someone has done the same to them ,and it hurts, does't it??
He is just a crook like them but it happens to be Iranian.

Greed Greed Greed

What a greedy person. I don't think IHF will have the standing it had after this and have a feeling it will not last. He was not just a board member but one of the founders.

What he did is just as in-excusable It's plain old greed. Yuck...

The Brits don't come into it, don't blame it on others

I second Mr Farhad Hakimzadeh's nomination as Iranian of the Day. To say every nation has its rotten apples is no excuse. It does in a way explain why Iranians shun each other. Neither does it have anything to do with Iranians of a certain class or anglophines or anglophobes. There are similar experiences among the diaspora in other countries.

An old friend was asked to sit on board of a charity running a school in London (and not part of any anglophile elite). There is no cohesion amongst the Iranians living here (note the careful avoidance of the term 'community'), and it was encouraging to see such a good kind trustworthy person contributing as the only enduring institutions we seem to have are our schools. So it came as a surprise to see him withdraw after a few weeks. It turned out that the charity had been lucky to have been exceptionally well funded that year he could not stand the greed of the so called trustees in trying to benefit personally.

Ignore the British context of this episode. That is not the point. Neither does conspiracy theories or British xenophobia have anything to do with this. Everyone is aware that the British are not entirely without guilt having pillaged other nations' treasures for centuries. They could have also outlawed this despicable trade. How many torn pages of Shahnameh have been auctioned by the British auctioneers, who knew perfectly well that these pages were stolen from similar archives and libraries in Iran?

There is no way of excusing what this man did.

Iranian Anglophiles in Britain

There is a sizeable group of Iranians in Britain with a long established history of support and love for everything British. Some of them have gone to the US universities and like Mr Hakimzadeh even carry and US a passport. They also have dubious relations with the regime of Tehran. Unfortunately for them, some of these long established Anglophiles takes their master's for loyalties for granted. They think that no matter what they do, their master will let them off the hook. Mr Hakimzadeh tested this assumption to a bitter end. When a servant dares touching the property of his master, he will be punished, and punished badly. The sad case of Hakimzadeh shows that not all masters are going to be loyal to their lackeys. Even the Brits have their limits when it comes to the plunder of their own hard earned loot.

The morale of the story: Never loot your master or you will be jeezed!