About me

Growing up in a war

I was born on 8 April 1978 in Tehran – in the Iranian calendar that’s 1357, the year of the revolution.

My childhood was shaped by the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq: sirens, bombing raids and war songs blaring from the radio, the television and loudspeakers. Public mass executions in the street were so common that we children skipped school to go and watch. When I think about it today, it still makes me feel sick.

On my own at 17

At 17, I had to leave Iran. While fleeing, I was arrested in Tabriz and tortured.

After an enormous struggle I made it to Turkey and was stuck there for six months – no language, no money. In early summer 1995, I was finally reunited with my family in Germany.

Starting from scratch

Those first years were hard. I was a teenager, didn’t speak the language, had no friends – and as the eldest child, I had nobody to show me the way. The first three years were the hardest.

I started out washing up and doing labouring jobs, and step by step I worked my way up to bigger responsibilities. Computers and the internet had fascinated me since my teens, and I taught myself web development.

Independent, but never alone

My first website was farhad200.com, from 1997 to 2000 – back then without my name on it. After that, I built free websites for activists and groups doing good work, whatever their politics. That’s how I got to know so many people.

Precisely because I worked for everyone, some people became suspicious. Some called me a monarchist, others a communist, others a regime spy. But I grew up in a family with very different political views, and I loved every one of them. That’s where I learnt that what’s right deserves support, whoever says it – and that nothing is a hundred per cent. That’s why I’ve never joined any party or group.

Over the years I’ve worked with many groups and political figures, both inside Iran and abroad. Here I want to remember those who are no longer with us: Reza Fazeli, Saeed Ghaem-Maghami, Jamshid Sharmahd, Forood Fuladvand, Bahram Moshiri and Masoud Sadr. I worked most closely with Jamshid Sharmahd. Despite big political differences, we were true friends, and his absence is the one I feel most.

We often disagreed and still worked together. Nobody was to blame – we simply saw the world from different angles.

Since 2015: husband and father

Since 2015 I’ve been a husband and a father. Since then I’ve stepped back a great deal from political activism – with one exception I couldn’t walk away from.

Standing up to discrimination

I experienced racial discrimination first-hand. Since 14 August 2022 I’ve been publicly standing up to the state government of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany – an opponent with the best lawyers and every resource imaginable. That same day I published the first video on my German channel, Omid57de, and I’ve been active in German ever since.

Everyone told me to leave it and not to cause trouble for myself. But I’m not doing this for me. I see it as my duty – for my children’s future, so that they don’t have to go through the same thing when they grow up, and for everyone else facing structural racism in Germany.

When I was young, I punched walls to make myself stronger. Nowadays I’m punching a different wall: injustice. And I won’t stop until it falls.

I’ve seen the world up close

I’ve travelled a lot – to the US, Canada and Mexico, the UAE and Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

And everywhere I saw the same thing: whatever language people speak and whatever they believe, they want freedom, security, peace and a decent life. That’s why I separate nations from their governments, and I never judge a people by what its government does.

What I believe

I don’t belong to any religion, but I’m a person of faith. That much order and design can’t have come about by chance. My religion is humanity and love for people.

Why this website is in five languages

I’m a staunch opponent of the Islamic Republic. But I see the main problem as ignorance and a lack of awareness – many people still don’t know what freedom really means. Without that awareness, a change of government doesn’t fix anything; things simply go from bad to worse.

The problems we Iranians have with our state, other nations have too, just in different forms. The only way forward I know is to build knowledge and awareness. That’s why I write – and why I write in five languages: mainly for Iranians and for people in Germany, but also for the many friends in the US, the UK and Canada who follow my work.

What I write about

• Human rights – in Iran, in Germany and everywhere else
• Cases where the authorities and the courts have failed people, and why we mustn’t look away
• Persian poems and short stories, translated simply
• Clear facts and overviews, such as the death penalty worldwide or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This website and AI

I mostly write in Persian. Many of the German, Spanish and English versions are translated with the help of AI (Google Gemini) – where that’s the case, it says so underneath. Parts of the text and design of this website were also made with AI’s help, but the thoughts and opinions are all my own.

My life in dates

1. 1978

   Born in Tehran on 8 April (Iranian calendar: 1357)

2. 1980–1988

   Childhood during the Iran–Iraq War

3. 1995

   Left Iran aged 17, six months in Turkey, arrived in Germany in early summer

4. 1995–1998

   Learning German, washing up and labouring jobs; taught myself web development

5. 1997–2000

   My first website: farhad200.com (still without my name)

6. 1998

   Began my political activism – independent, never a party member

7. 2012

   29 April: first video on my Omid57tv channel YouTube ↗

8. 2015

   Married and started a family; stepped back from politics

9. around 2015

   Launched my IT Tipps channel YouTube ↗

10. 2022

    14 August: public fight against discrimination in Rhineland-Palatinate, first video on Omid57de YouTube ↗

11. 2026

    New website omid57.net in five languages