Keyvan Shahbazi Wins the Pim Fortuyn Prize 2026 - The Iranian Cause in the Dutch Media
With Keyvan Shahbazi winning the Pim Fortuyn Prize 2026, a powerful voice for the Iranian cause in the Dutch media receives the recognition it deserves. For years, Shahbazi has spoken out with clarity, courage and conviction about Iran, freedom of speech, political Islam and the struggle for a free Iran. He is not a distant commentator observing events from the sidelines. He speaks from personal experience, history and belief. His voice was shaped by Iran, but his message has found its place in the Netherlands.
Keyvan Shahbazi was born in Tehran in 1964. As a cultural psychologist, writer and opinion maker, he has built a clear public profile in the Netherlands. He is a guest author for BeNews, writes regularly for De Telegraaf, and is the author of the bestselling book on Iran, De Amerikaan van Karadj.
Shahbazi’s work is broad and influential. He has advised Dutch government officials, taught at the Police Academy and serves as a board member of Comité Iran Vrij. In 2024, he was named Free Thinker of the Year. In 2025, he was nominated for the Pim Fortuyn Prize, and in 2026 he won the award. Previous winners include Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, opinion maker and writer Theodor Holman, writer Leon de Winter, jurist and opinion maker Afshin Ellian, and former politician and opinion maker Ronald Plasterk.
What makes Shahbazi’s contribution so important is his background. He does not look at Iran as an outsider. He knows the pain of a country that, after the Islamic Revolution, was transformed into a dictatorship where freedom, women’s rights, minorities and dissenting voices were pushed aside.
That personal experience, combined with his intellectual depth, gives his work an urgency often missing from public debate. In the West, Iran is too often discussed only as a geopolitical problem. Shahbazi keeps drawing attention to the people behind the headlines: women, young people, artists, dissidents and families who live under daily repression.
This is where his most important contribution to the Iranian cause in the Dutch media can be found. Shahbazi wrote columns for de Volkskrant for many years and has published in De Telegraaf since 2020 and for BeNews since 2026.
Through opinion articles, interviews, books and public appearances, Keyvan Shahbazi brings the struggle of Iranians for freedom closer to Dutch and Flemish audiences. He translates the reality of Iran into questions that are also relevant here, and increasingly so:
What does freedom truly mean?How should we deal with political Islam?And why does the West so often hesitate when oppressed people ask for support?
His books play an important role in that mission. De Amerikaan van Karadj brought both his personal story and the history of Iran to a wide readership. In 2025, two of his books appeared in the Bestseller Top 60 at the same time. That shows that Shahbazi’s message is not limited to political circles. It also reaches readers who want to understand Iran, freedom and repression through literature and personal testimony.
The Pim Fortuyn Prize 2026 is therefore a significant honour for Shahbazi. The prize is named after Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician who was murdered in Hilversum on 6 May 2002, shortly before the Dutch parliamentary elections. His newly founded party, the LPF, won 26 seats in those elections. Fortuyn became a symbol of breaking open political debate and addressing subjects that politics and the media often preferred to avoid.
In that tradition, the recognition of Keyvan Shahbazi is fitting. He too chooses subjects that are uncomfortable. He warns against Western naivety toward the Iranian regime, criticises political Islam and defends the right to question religion, ideology and power without fear.
That is precisely why his voice is valuable in the public debate. A democracy does not only need consensus. It also needs voices that warn, explain facts, confront us and remind us what freedom and democracy really mean.
For the media, Shahbazi’s work is an invitation to go deeper. The Iranian cause deserves more than one-sided or occasional attention when international tensions rise, or when American President Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are simply portrayed as warmongers.
The debate requires historical awareness, moral clarity and space for voices from the Iranian diaspora. Shahbazi has shown why those voices matter. He connects personal testimony with political analysis and makes clear that freedom should never be taken for granted.
That Keyvan Shahbazi has won the Pim Fortuyn Prize 2026 underlines his importance as a writer, opinion maker and advocate for a free Iran.
His work reminds us that freedom can only be defended through both words and deeds.
His voice is rooted in a deep understanding of what is lost when fear defeats truth.
Keyvan Shahbazi (Tehran, 1964) is a cultural psychologist, writer, and commentator, and the author of the bestselling book about Iran, The American of Karaj. He has advised Dutch government officials, taught at the Police Academy, and is a board member of the Committee Iran Free. In 2024 he was named Freethinker of the Year; in 2025 he was nominated for the Pim Fortuyn Prize. He won the Pim Fortuyn prize in 2026. He wrote columns for de Volkskrant for many years and has published in De Telegraaf since 2020. In 2025, two of his books were simultaneously in the Bestseller Top 60.
The Pim Fortuyn Prize is named after the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. He was murdered on May 6, 2002, in Hilversum, shortly before the Dutch parliamentary elections. His newly founded party, the LPF, won those elections with 26 seats.
Image credits: Keyvan Shahbazi
