The real MP vs. the imposter

I'm at the Robarts Library and since I don't have my Persian keyboard layout here, it's a good chance to blog a bit in English. So let me explain about the MP imposter story.

During the reformists MPs sit-in two weeks ago last week, I wrote something and encouraged them to blog their protest so they could win some support among the youth, whose support was once the sole reason of the whole reformist camp's rise and taking the control of the government and the Parliament. Then I came across to a daily column that Ahmad Shirzad, an MP from Isfahan, was writing in the last page of Yas-e No daily, describing the vibe and the events of the sit-in; very similar to a diary or a blog.

So in another posting, I wrote that Shirzad's column is in fact a blog, except it's not posted online; and I wished if somebody could get him to do it in a personal blog, a couple of times a week.

A few hours later I received an email from some yahoo address, seemingly Mr. Shirzad's, asking me to help him setup a blog. Despite my concerns about his identity, and because his writing style and references were so close to what one can expect from some Iranian MP, I thought I could afford taking the risk of setting up a blog for him.

So I bought a domain and built a blog for him in 24 hours. Meanwhile, for the very doubt that I still had about this guy, I posted something in my Persian blog saying that I knew this might end up as a pathetic identity-theft, but since the sit-in is in fact in its last days, I decided to go ahead and make this blog for the pretending MP. Also said that if the guy was the real Shirzad, it was absolutely worth the risk. But if he was not, I would just have lost a few bucks I had paid for his domain name and little bit of “we said so" from the readers; however the real Shirzad could still use the domain, the blog--and the free publicity.

A day after, turned out that the guy was actually a smart imposter. Because the real Shirzad had interviewed a big news agency (ISNA) disassociating any website or blog under his name. (Doesn't it show how influential are weblogs now in Iran that a rumor in the blogosphere must be answered in a news agency? Doesn't it ironically say that blogs are almost as important as big news agencies in Iran now?)

Later, the real Shirzad and I exchanged a few emails (this time in English instead of Pinglish, and from his academic IPM email account, not the free yahoo one). I offered him to use the publicity and to take advantage from the then-popular blog and the great publicity, but he refused--understandably enough. He was too busy to be able to think about these kinds of things.

I hear later that he had ordered the Telecom Company to filter out blog, fearing that the fake Shirzad could get him into trouble by posting false news and commentary. He had asked me to completely close down the website too, which I didn't obey. instead I deleted all posts by the imposter (which actually were nothing unusual or harmful to the real Shirzad), and prepared a long post on my Persian blog, telling the whole story in detail, along with all emails exchanged between the fake MP and me, plus IP addresses of the imposter.

People say that the reformists can never stop burning the great opportunities people provide to them for free. Khatami was a great example, and now Dr. Ahmad Shirzad is another.