Saeed Laylaz is an Iranian economist who has paid a big price for expressing his views about the direction of the country. A former adviser to Reformist Mohammad Khatami’s administration, Laylaz became a vocal critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies and spent time in jail in the 2009 post-election crackdown. He was also the editor-in-chief of the periodical Sarmayeh, which was shut down by the government in 2009.
With a new president and a new economic team, for the first time in eight years Laylaz finds himself in the position of supporting the Iranian administrations’ economic policies.