He started working in the Islamic Republic government as an employee of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in May 1982. He went up to become a vice minister when Mohammad Khatami was the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. He left the ministry after a while, and worked for the newspaper Hamshahri until 1997.[1]
Tajzadeh was one of seven leading reformists who filed a lawsuit against several commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for their alleged intervention in Iran's presidential elections.[2]
Amnesty International reported that he was arrested in June 2009, amidst the 2009 Iranian election protests.[3] He was convicted of "assembly and collusion against national security" and "propaganda against the regime", sentenced to 6 years in prison and a 10-year ban on political and press activities by Branch 15 of the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court. He was imprisoned in Evin Prison from 2009 until 2016. In 2014, while still in prison, he faced new charges and was convicted of another 1 year in prison.[4]
During an interview with Iranian Documentarist Mr. Hossein Dehbashi, Mr. Tajzadeh acknowledged that he was not a good student during the last years of high school in Iran and received his high school diploma with difficulty but chose to continue his academic studies in the US in mid '70's since, according to Mr. Tajzadeh, "American universities and colleges were easy to enroll in". Mr. Tajzadeh, during the same interview with Mr. Dehbashi, stated: "I enrolled at Siskiyous College between Houston and Dallas [in Texas] just to have my [US issued] Student's Visa renewed but I let it go after a while". In fact, Mr. Tajzadeh acknowledges that he did not study in the US at all."But [there in Texas] we established "Falagh" Group since we believed in armed resistance and fighting against the Shah's Regime. "I went back to Iran then but my other friends like Mr. Khosravi, Mr. Baezi and some others left [USA] directly for Syria and Lebanon to be trained"; continued Mr. Tajzadeh.[citation needed]