Sina in prision - Day 13

Sina's wife has finally spoken out in her weblog. She's said that Sina needs everybod to be calm so he get out earlier. She has denied all the things that LA-based satelite Persian TVs say about Sina, and has added that she hadn't talked to anyone except to ISNA on the first day. (God damn this indirect quoting!)

In other important developments, Iranian judiciary spokesperson (who is a radical Islamist and has just appointed to his new job) has said that there is no journalist in Iranian prisions! He said that a few people who call themselves journalists, are not arrested because of their writings.

This is their newest tactic. They arrest journalists and activists and throw them in jail, because of possesing alcoholic drinks, or "illegal" video or music tapes, etc. So this way they don'r pay any political price for these actions and make the charges more reasonable for the outside world. They have done the same thing for Alireza Jabbari, a writer and translator recently.

So I think they would announce that Sina's charges are not political at all and he is not there because he is a journalist. beware of their new tricks.

BBC News has finally spoken out about his arrest and wide-spread protests against it in English and Persian language blogopsheres. the first piece, "Bloggers unite to fight", is about how Iranians are using Internet to protest. other piece is "Gagging the bloggers" by Bill Thompson, a regular columnist for the BBC, who looks at the political impacts of weblogs.

Many thanks to Bill Thompson who was following the news, even before I personally contact him about it.