1. Omid Kokabee is an Iranian experimental laser physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who was arrested in Iran after returning from the United States to visit his family on January 30,2011.
12 Facts About Omid Kokabee
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Omid Kokabee is from Iran's mostly Sunni Muslim Turkmen ethnic group.
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Omid Kokabee was ranked 29th in the Iranian university entrance exam, with more than one million participants annually.
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Omid Kokabee entered Sharif University of Technology in 2000, and completed a double major undergraduate program in Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering.
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Omid Kokabee has published more than twenty collaborative papers, including seven journal publications, including his publications in Optics Letters.
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Omid Kokabee was arrested at Imam Khomeini International Airport on his return trip to the United States in February 2011, and was subjected to solitary confinement for 36 days after his arrest.
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Omid Kokabee attended trial before a judge Abolqasem Salavati with a group of 10 to 15 people in the same session, under the collective charge of collaborating with Israeli authorities.
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The open letters to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, note that Omid Kokabee was not politically active and was not associated with any political movement in Iran.
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On November 24,2015, Omid Kokabee was transferred to Taleghani Hospital in Tehran, suffering from kidney stones.
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Omid Kokabee was released on parole on 29 August 2016.
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On September 23,2013, the American Physical Society, the principal professional society of United States physicists, announced that Omid Kokabee has been selected as a co-recipient of its 2014 Andrei Sakharov Prize, which recognizes outstanding leadership of scientists upholding human rights.
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Omid Kokabee was cited for "his courage in refusing to use his physics knowledge to work on projects that he deemed harmful to humanity in the face of extreme physical and psychological pressure".