Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Blogger ceased by Iranian regime


Iranian Blogger Arrested in Tehran -Dudi Cohen

An Iranian blogger who recently visited Israel was arrested in Tehran, an Iranian website reported. The blogger, Hossein Derakhshan [pictured above], who runs one of the most popular blogs in his country, returned to Iran several weeks ago after a long stay in Canada.

[H]e attended a seminar on blog writing held at the Ben Gurion University in Beersheba. During that trip he told Ynet that the main objective of his visit was to "break the taboo" of Israeli-Iranian relations.

For many Iranians Derakhshan symbolized the model for a successful, well-known blogger who travels around the world promoting democracy and human rights in his country. He has also done a lot to promote the Iranian blogosphere and even wrote a manual for blog writing in Farsi.
(Ynet News)

3 comments:

LHwrites said...

Sad, but maybe it will only last a short time while they determine he did nothing harmful to the state while in Israel. I visited his blog through your link. Sadly, my command of Middle Eastern languages is on a par with Republican and Conservatives understanding of everything else about the Middle East.

MaggieMae said...

Wait, I'm confused. ISRAEL arrested him? He's just a blogger! What the hell.

Bruce said...

Actually, no. He was arrested in the city of Tehran, which is the capital of Iran.

The Iranian's, not being a democracy, exert tight control over expression. They have a morality police, including a female force known to beat women who do not wear hijabs.

The blogger lived in Canada for a long while, but published his blog in Farsi, the Iranian language. Though he said nice things about the Iranian regime from time to time, i guess that was not enough. Bloggers are dangerous to dictators. Very dangerous. I suspect he won't be updated his blog for a very long time.