I've always wondered why Canadaians, especially univerisy students, are not into blogging very much. Is it because they don't know enough about them, or they already are familiary, but not interested enough to start one.
Anyhow, I've launched a very simple directory for weblogs written by University of Toronto students and instructors as a way of encouraging more students to start blogging and to form a sort of community.
So here is uoftblogs.com, please submit your weblog if you study or teach at UofT.
According to an email from a friend, Iranian government has officially ordered all ICPs (Internet Connection Provider) and ISPs to ban my domain, hoder.com, in secret letter to all ICPs, along with dozens of other websites and weblogs.
Meanwhile, an MP said to ITIran that the committee of communications in Iranian parliament was going to investigate the recent bloackages.
The latest list mostly includes political weblogs and websites, as well as a couple of anonomizer services that enable people to pass the filters and access blocked websites.
Here is the complete list:
akunews.org
babaknews.persianblog.com
tribun.com
mobarezan.com
azadegy.de
jonbesh.org
psf.persianblog.com
hallaj2.persianblog.com
hamishak.blogspot.com
1334.persianblog.com
18tir29khordad.persianblog.com
saghf.com
irannow.blogspot.com
jonbeshdaneshjo.persianblog.com
behzadfarahmand.blogspot.com
nok.persianblog.com
persiannote.blogspot.com
diackomand.persianblog.com
hoder.com
sobhaneh.com
opener.9tg.net
hemid.com
kanoon-zendanian.org
dfofd.de
jonge-khabar.com
nejat.info
hambastegi-baraie-iran.org
tadbir.topcities.com
iran-chabar.de
trife.com
anonymisers.com
safeproxy.org
guardster.com
proxyweb.net
noproxy.com
peek-a-booty.org
anonymizer.com
anonymize.net
surfola.com
webwarper.net
htthost.com
proxt22.com
megaproxy.com
sepadkhorasan.com
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Two new pieces about Persian weblog: first one was WSJ's editorial abuot the political aspects of weblogs in Iran in terms of freedom of speech (Sorry, I don't have a link since it requires subscription UPDATE: Jeff provided the link. However I've added the piece's full text at the bottom of this post. Hope WSJ lawyers don't mind!); and the second one is by CNN which mainly deals with the new wave of censorship on weblogs in Iran, including my own Persian weblog.
Now as people inside Iran write to me, persianblog.com is unblocked, but blogspot and my domain (hoder.com) are still blocked my most of the ISPs. As I wrote in the Persian weblog, I'm trying to take these steps to unblock my blog: first, I try to contact Pars Online, the big ISP that has blocked them to see if it has received any verbal or written order to block them; then I will write an open letter to the Minister of cummunications and ask him why they've ordered it; and finally I will start an internatinal campaign to protest Iranian government about blocking them.
The Blog Shall Make You Free
Wall Street Journal, Editorial
July 18, 2003
The story of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, who Iran has finally admitted died from brain injuries sustained when Iranian secret police beat her, made international news this week. More surprising is that Westerners are hearing about Iranian journalist Sina Motallebi, arrested for the crime of blogging.
Technology has played a huge role in modern democracy movements, whether it was faxes during the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, or e-mail during the Russian overthrow of its dictators. Iran, for its part, has discovered blogs. In less than two years an estimated 10,000 blogs have popped up under the very noses of mullahs, mostly written in Persian, and all of them giving Iranians a new free-speech outlet.
Thanks to these blogs, Iranians are gabbing fairly freely about everything from entertainment and poetry to technology and personal diaries. Iranian women (who can take different names online) use blogs to talk about dating, sex and other taboo subjects. And, of course, the blogs are playing a real role in Iran's democracy movement. Bloggers provide firsthand accounts of student protests, political criticism and even attract politicians -- who comment on postings.
Iran's mullahs might be slow but they're catching on. They have started blocking sites they deem subversive (including Voice of America's Persian-language site) and have occasionally shut down student sites and blog-hosting services like persianblog.com. They also decided to make an example of Mr. Motallebi. A journalist for a paper that was shut down by the government, Mr. Motallebi began a blog. His site, while rarely political, was very popular. In April he was arrested on undisclosed charges, and is now awaiting trial.
That Westerners know about Mr. Motallebi is largely the result of another blogging phenomenon: Iranians who run English-language blogs outside of Iran. Pedram Moallemian, born in Iran but now living in California, runs a blog (www.eyeranian.net) and started an online petition to protest Mr. Motallebi's arrest. Hossein Derakhshan, who runs a Iran-focused blog (www.hoder.com) in Canada, helped bring the story to the attention of well-known blogs like InstaPundit and Buzz Machine, which means a lot of Americans now know the story. Mr. Derakhshan has also provided Iranians back home with the technical information to set up blogs.
The Internet won't bring down Iran's dictators. But the blogging phenomenon shows that human freedom and expression will not be denied, and that technology will only continue to make the job of dictators that much harder.
Watching Tony Blair's wonderful speech in U.S congress, and the press conference afterwards, I guess, from now on, it is Tony Blair who is going to lead the so-called international coalition against terrorism. Blair has been able to gain Bush's total trust, which eventually means that British government will not only be acting as a bridge between Eroupe and U.S, and also Muslim world and Christian world, but also be very influential on the way U.S will deal with internatinal issues. In other words, Blair would be the brain for the powerful and wealthy body of Bush. Meanwhile Bush is going to be invloved with internal problems during the next year and so, specially he should be preparing to run for the second term. therefore you will see Blair as bush's substitute in the world in the next couiple of months, I guess. Needless to say which administration would do a better job in terms of dealing with international problems.
French paper, Liberation, has reported that Saeed Mortazavi, notorious and hated young judge, has persnoally caused the death of Zahra Kazemi, Iraniaan-Canadian reporter, by beating her. He is the person responsible for shutting down of hundreds of newspapers and magazines and sending hundreds of journalists and activists to prison. He was recently appointed to a higher position as the prosecutor general of revolutionary courts in Tehran
When I wrote about Pejman's suggestions for future leaders of a secular Iran, I thought it was so absurd that it didn't event need an explanation. But now I guess it needs it.
(Note: Google results are for their names in Persian. They only try to show their presence on the Internet Persian community.)
1. Mehdi Karrubi is a very powerful cleric who not only has any popularity, but is not a secualr person in any way. He was one the closest clerics to Ayatolah Khomeini and even now he always appreciate the "Velayat-e Faghih" notion in Islamic Republic of Iran. He is the man who, by reading Khamenei's letter, single-handedly prevented any change in press law. He has proved to be very faithful to the notions of religious democracy. Compared with the current president Mohammad Khatami, Karrubi is less popular, less intellectual than hi,. Rumors about his corruption is very wide-spread. he used to be tha parliament's speaker before in Khoemeini's period.
Google result: 1,130
2. Hossein Loghmanian is a very ordinary MP who happend to become the first arrested MP in Islamic Republic of Iran. He then was released after a day or two mainly by influence of Karrubi. He is too far from having the minimum qualities of a political leader, let alone I doubt he can be a mayor of a small city.
Google result: 559
3. Hashem Aghajari is more of an ideologue and scholar than a political leader and activist. He has missed his leg during the Iran-Iraq war when he was a faithful man to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic roots of the revolution. Being a memeber of a very influential but small leftist political group, "Mojahedin Enghelab Eslami", he and his friends have always been the main target of traditional right-wing political groups such as "Heyat Motalefeh".
Google result: 2,200
4. Who is Mahmud Ali Chehregani? I have never heard of him. He might be a popular person in some parts of iran with Turkish background, but a brief poll will show that how much popular or even known he is among average Iranian people. He has almost no appearence in the public political scene of Iran.
Google results: 68
5. Reza Pahlavi is very well-known but not as much popular. The more educated the people, the more likely to dimiss him as a political leader. He hasn't lived in Iran since he was about ten years old and lacks the minimum qualitiies of a political leader, such as personal athority, first-hand experience of the Iranian society, influence on intellectuals etc. However, despite my own opinion agasint him, he is the only person in Pejman's list that basically fits in this list of possible future leaders of a secualr Iran. There is no way the other four agree with a secular system!
Google result: 2,200
Pedram has written a great piece in Iranian.com to encourage Iranian people to join the blogosphere and the influential debate that is going on in it about the future of Iran. Check it out and forward it to your potential Iranian blogger friends. Thank you Pedram! (Link corrected thanks to Jeff)
I wonder how Pejman has come with this funny list of possible future leaders of Iran:
1. Mehdi Karroubi
2. Hossein Loghmanian:
3. Hashem Aghajari:
4. Mahmud Ali Chehregani
5. Reza Pahlavi
He adds later:
... these five individuals are among the most prominent in Iran, and could very well be asked to assume some authority in any post-Islamic government.
No offense, but this list proves that Pejman knows nothing about Iranaian political situation and it's important figures. I wonder if anyone in Tech Central has got any feedback about this piece.
Good news is that Iranian government has ordered ISPs to unblock blogging services and has said that it was a technical mistake by service providers. (Source: ISNA)
Bad news at least for me is that my own weblogs are still unavailable in Iran. If they don't unblock them by Tuesday evening, I'll do something!
I don't remember that Khatami has ever been under such a lot of pressure from everywhere. Aside from some intellectualls such as Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohsen Kadivar, whose recent open letters have been circulating among people in Iran, his own brother has wrote a letter to him, warning him of parallel security organizations' methods of action against not only opposition, but even reformist activists and journalists. Maybe that's why he has recently spoken about resignation again. He said that if people wanted him to go, he would step down.
The latest rumors is that hardliners are trying to arrest all influential reformist activists and based on their confessions under torture, accuse members of parliments of co-operating with Americans and cancel the whole parliment.
Zahra kazemi, 54 years old Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer who was arrested and beaten in Tehran last week has died in a hostpital in Tehran. BBC Persian has the news.
Update: More about it on CBC News website
Optimistically speaking, I guess the recent blocking of all blogging tools in Iran (+ my own poor weblog!) in the days of July 9th, has been a matter of security. Almost any kind of communication with outside world were cut off: cell-phones, long-distance calling cards, VoIP phone lines, satelite TVs, Internet access, and finally weblogs. It is very likely that the reformist government has arranged all of it for the fear of riots in the city and a more than possible savage reaction to them by hardliner vigilante and revolutionary guards. Because hardliners are not practically capabale of doing all this.
So I'm hopeful that the input/output channels will be opened again by saturday and people can access blogosphere again. But anyways, please spread the word. It's very important.
The piece Joe Katzman wrote in Pejmanseque was not clear in that what I said about reluctancy of Irnanians to work with Jewish people was not based on ideological or religious reasons. What I mean is that majority of educated Iranians are tolerant enough to accept other people's believes and religions. But this is a matter of security in Iran, where nobody is even allowed to travel to Israel! (This is officialy mentioned in Iranian passport.) Even the most open-minded intellectual would not dare dialing a number in Israel, not because of his believes, but only because he/she doesn't like troubles.
Israel is a taboo in Iran an Joe is right where he says Islamic Republic of Iran is existing through these kind of taboos. I'm perfectly ok with breaking taboos, but not when my or my family's life would be in danger.
However, I beleive breaking the taboo of Israel in Iran could start from outside and by immigrant Iranians who are well-known enough to be safe of being accused of working for MUSAD!
Israel should be the best friend for Iran in mid-east region with all those anti-persian Arab countries. this is my personal thought and I will write more bout it.
Ok, now it's official. Hamshahri, a very well-known newspaper, has reported that all Blogspot and Persianblog subdomains plus my own Persian and English weblogs (Editor:Myself) are blobked by the government. It might be something temporary in order to control the information from outside in the days of July 9th anniversarry. But anyways, they have done it now I guess it desreves attention.
One of the common mistakes about Iranian people is that they are anti-western. This is totally wrong. Iranians are maybe the closest people in the region to western values such as rationality, tolerance and individuality. This is exactly what I tried to show in my BlogTalk paper 2 months ago: Iranian weblogs are showing the qualities of the post-Islamic-revolution generation.
One should not confuse anti-western ideas in Arab world—which of course has theoretical roots—with anti-neoconservativism in Iran which absolutely has pragmatic reasons, not theoretical. If the same Bush administration didn't want to —or threat to—change Iran using military power, you would see how people still like them. Educated Iranians are very very worried that something the same as U.S-backed coup in 1953, which toppled popular democratically chosen government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and brought the corrupt and inexperienced king back, would happen again and destroy whatever they had achieved for the last 50 years of institutionalizing democracy.
Meanwhile, this is not a matter of blind objection. We think military intervention will undoubtedly take us to the point zero in our long process to self-achieved, independent democracy. This notion is based on our own knowledge about ourselves and we are sure that if other people who defend the idea of military intervention, had the same knowledge, would think the same.
Confirmed reports are saying that akunews (prominent student news website) and major blogging services websites such as blogspot and persianblog are blocked since a few hours ago. My Persian and English weblogs are blocked too.
Meanwhile, there are reports of partial unrest in central parts of Tehran. I'll keep you updated abuot the news here. Some of them have links to English resources, some not, because I see them in Persian websites.
There will be a gathering this afternoon in downtown Toronto to support Iranian students and their efforts toward democary. It will start at 5 PM 7 P.M. and here is the address:
JJR Macleod Auditorium
Medical Sciences Building - Univeristy of Toronto
1 Kings College Circle
M5S lA8
Toronto, Ontario
(click to see the map)
I'd like to call for a huge brainstrom on "How can a non-Iranian person know more about iran". Please provide a list of five things that you think would be useful for someone in order to find helpful information about Iranian culture, people, society etc. (Inspired by McGill Report)
It may include particular films, books, articles, websites, weblogs, pictures, paintings, songs, etc. Please provide links to related internet resources if you find any.
You can list them all in comments section for this post and you are encouraged to link to it.
I've been thinking recently about how could outside world give support to democracy in Iran, the best way. Blogger folks such as Jeff Jarvis, Pejman Yousefizadeh, Joe Katzman, Andrew Sullivan, etc. have increased efforts to make at least English speaking blogosphere care more about Iranian students who've been struggling for change for a long time, and I really appreciate their attemtion and support. But I believe we all can do much more than putting up an icon, saying that we support democracy in Iran. In fact, we first should know about what kind of place Iran is and how it differs from Iraq and other mid-east countries.
So I'd like to suggest a new approach to supporting democracy in Iran: "If you really want to support us, try to know more about us."
The new approach, which could launch a whole new campaign, is much more effective in that without enough insightful knowledge about a problem, no one can really provide any helpful solution. One has to know the socio-political situation in Iran in order to be able to help; and this is the first and essential step of any kind of support.
So let's think about how we can learn more about Iran and it's people. I'll be writing about some practical ideas tomorrow.
Robert Brym, a sociology professor in University of Toronto write in an aricle:
In Canada, for example, most of the big public opinion firms (Angus Reid, Goldfarb, and Environics) are owned and run by sociologists. One of the tasks they have set themselves is to better understand the popular culture of North American youth. By conducting surveys and regularly organizing focus groups with young consumers in major North American cities, they identify new tastes and trends that marketers can then use to sell product. The most recent report on pop culture produced by Angus Reid is available for $20,000 a copy (Angus Reid Group, 1999).
That's the answer to those people who ask "what are you going to do as a sociologist?". But a pretty capitalistic answer though.