Editor: Myself

Tough times for the Iranian 'Blogfather'

I was in Canada two weeks ago for a panel discussion in a Canadian organization. So it was a good chance to raise the issue of free speech, both in Iran and in the 'West.'

The following is an article that was published in Ottawa Citizen when I was there. (Direct link to the article)

The Blogfather

Times are hard for Iran's online free-speech pioneer NN

Don Butler
The Ottawa Citizen

Friday, November 02, 2007

These are trying times for the Blogfather of Iran.

Beset by legal troubles, abandoned by former allies and angered by the West's hostile characterization of his native land, Hossein Derakhshan could be forgiven if the topic he is to address in Ottawa today -- the role of the media in democratic development -- isn't top of mind.

The 32-year-old Iranian Canadian, known as the Blogfather for his role in kickstarting Iran's blogging revolution, flew in from Britain for a panel discussion this afternoon sponsored by the International Development Research Centre.

But Mr. Derakhshan has more pressing matters to attend to while in Canada. Mehdi Khalaji, a visiting Iranian scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has just filed a $2-million defamation suit for critical comments about him on Mr. Derakhshan's groundbreaking blog, Editor: Myself. So now the Blogfather needs a lawyer.

"It would cost me so much money to find a lawyer, and so much time," Mr. Derakhshan moaned this week from London, where he has just begun an MA program in media studies. "It's really devastating."

After Mr. Khalaji's lawyers filed notice of libel in August, the Florida-based firm that was hosting Mr. Derakhshan's blog terminated his account, forcing him to migrate to a new Internet provider.

That Mr. Derakhshan's blog was shut down by an American company is more than a little ironic. It is, after all, the same blog that Iran's regime, so reviled in the West, has been blocking since 2004. (It still reaches a limited number of Iranians by e-mail or other roundabout means.)

And because he visited Israel last year in a high-profile effort to foster better understanding between Israelis and Iranians, Mr. Derakhshan can no longer return to his homeland without risking arrest.

But that's how things have been going lately for Mr. Derakhshan, whose former friends have cut him loose for his outspoken opposition to western attempts to portray Iran as a threat to global security.

So worried is he about the demonization of Iran that he has ceased all criticism of his homeland in English. (He still offers critiques, but only in his Persian blog.) "We should keep our internal problems to ourselves for a while until the threat is gone," he argues.

This summer, he shut down a website documenting censorship in Iran because he feared it would add fuel to the anti-Iranian campaign, though he says he may revive it later, in Persian only.

He has criticized NGOs such as Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch, saying their campaigns against censorship and human rights violations in Iran are often counter-productive and serve American interests more than those of Iranians.

He has even defended Iran's right to possess nuclear weapons for defensive purposes, and has publicly declared that he will return to defend his native land if the West attacks.

All this has left him isolated from the community of politically active expatriate Iranians who formerly supported him. Some bloggers have removed links to his blog. Others have actively urged readers to boycott him. Interview requests from western-based Iranian media have dried up, as have invitations to ex-pat events and panel discussions.

It's quite a change for someone once widely viewed as a free-speech techno-hero. The darkly handsome Mr. Derakhshan has been sympathetically profiled in such diverse publications as Wired and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. More than 7,700 people have watched his interview on CBC's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos on YouTube.

Mr. Derakhshan arrived in Canada in December 2000 with his Iranian-Canadian wife (the two have since split) keen to experience the West's vaunted economic and political freedoms.

Within nine months, writing from the kitchen table of his Toronto apartment, he had started his blog, using the nom-de-blog Hoder, a contraction of his first and last names.

Mr. Derakhshan, who wrote about the Internet and digital culture for newspapers in Iran, was attracted to blogging by the freedom it offered. "I didn't want to be censored by the publishers and editors in Iran."

At the time, blogging was unknown in Iran. But Mr. Derakhshan soon sent it into overdrive by writing simple instructions that let Iranians blog in their own Persian language.

He also promoted new tools and technologies, linked to other blogs and bugged his journalist friends in Iran "to use this amazing technology to bypass the local editors and the limiting structure of the Iranian press."

When he started out, he hoped there would be 100 Iranian bloggers within a year. Instead, there were thousands. "I was very pessimistic," he acknowledges.

Today, Iran is one of the world's top blogging nations, with an estimated 800,000 blogs, though not all are active.

Though some bloggers have been arrested or harassed, the vast majority are left in peace, Mr. Derakhshan says. Even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a blog.

The regime tolerates blogging, Mr. Derakhshan says, because unlike technologies such as satellite TV, it is not primarily associated with secular, anti-government forces.

Most Iranian bloggers are neither secular nor opponents of the regime, he says. "That's why the government embraced it rather than rejecting it. They don't see blogs as a destabilizing medium or technology."

Blogging has helped expand Iranian civil society, he believes, at least among the country's wealthier, more educated urban residents.

"Within this small fraction of the whole population, the effect has been quite significant, because it has opened up a whole new space for public debate. It has significantly affected public intellectuals because it has helped them engage with a different sort of audience in a much more interactive and lively way."

Though Mr. Derakhshan initially blogged only in Persian, he added an English blog about a year later, in part to show the world how swiftly blogging was catching on in Iran.

But even as acclaim for his pioneering work poured in, Mr. Derakhshan's enthusiasm for his new western home was waning.

As a student in Iran, he says, "I never understood or had any kind of interest in Marxist theories. As soon as I arrived in Canada, after maybe six months and maybe three months of working full time in a company, I realized what he was saying."

As his critiques of western society have become more pointed, he has been heartened by supportive messages from some non-political ex-pats that echo his own journey. "They left Iran with the same hopes and dreams that when they came to Canada or the U.S., everything would be perfect there," he says. "You would have such a happy life.

"When they see the nuances and realities of things in the West, they realize it's not like what they were thinking. They start to question many of these presumptions and presuppositions."

Since emigrating to Canada, Mr. Derakhshan has returned to Iran only once, during the 2005 elections that chose Mr. Ahmadinejad as president.

As he was leaving the country, he was detained and interrogated by officials from the ministry of intelligence about things he had written in his blog.

Their concerns included disrespectful comments about Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, opinions about Iran's nuclear program that were "out of the government's line," and his irreligious views. His interrogators were also unhappy with him for helping Iranians bypass Internet censorship.

Officials ultimately forced him to sign an apology before allowing him to leave.

His trip to Israel in January 2006 appears to have cemented his status as persona non grata. When he appeared on an Iranian news channel recently, the producers received a call from Tehran "asking why did you invite this guy and please do not do it again," he says.

"This is very frustrating to me. They are so paranoid that they can't distinguish their friends from their enemies.

"The fact that I have been to Israel is just enough for them to rule out any possibility that I could be genuinely defending my people and the legitimacy of my government."

While he's a critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad, that doesn't mean he condones the way he's treated in the West.

"It's really, really unfair and wrong and unethical the way they treat him. At the end of the day, he's elected by my people and he represents Iran, for better or for worse."

Mr. Derakhshan's inability to visit his homeland gnaws at him. "I can never have the experience of talking to ordinary Iranians on the street," he laments.

He thinks the West is missing a golden opportunity to build bridges to the Muslim world by isolating and demonizing the Iranian regime, which he insists is not a threat to others.

If the West removed its existential threat to Iran, he's convinced its political discourse would broaden. Iran, he says, could be "an amazing role model for the whole Muslim world to stop being reactionary toward the West and start some sort of positive interaction."

Iran's Islamic republic is still a very new concept and remains a work in progress, he says. Given the chance, "the major force that could democratize the region is a successful Islamic republic rather than an oppressive, colonizing United States."

A year ago, Mr. Derakhshan was convinced an attack on Iran was likely. Now, he thinks the risk is minimal, mainly because western nations have invested so much time and energy in economic sanctions.

Western politicians also realize a military attack would be "counterproductive by any calculation," he says. "Even the most ideologically driven ones, like Cheney, have realized that they wouldn't gain anything from any kind of military clash with Iran at the moment."

As Iran's Blogfather struggles to gain purchase in a time of trouble, that, at least, is something to hold on to.

- - -

FAST FACTS

The Event: A roundtable discussion on media and democratic government features Iranian-Canadian Hossein Derakhshan, known as the Blogfather for his role in kickstarting Iran's blogging revolution.

The Lawsuit: Mr. Derakhshan needs a lawyer, as he is being sued for $2 million by Iranian scholar Mehdi Khalaji, who accuses Mr. Derakhshan of defaming him.

The Context: Despite acclaim from human rights groups, and being unwelcome in Iran thanks to a 2006 trip he made to Israel, Mr. Derakhshan finds his enthusiasm for the West waning.

- - -

BLOGFATHER BASICS

Bio: Hossein Derakhshan, a.k.a. Hoder. Born in 1975 in Iran to a religious family. Emigrated to Canada with his former wife in 2000. Settled in Toronto, where he started a Persian-language blog, Sardabir:khodam ("Editor: Myself") in 2001. Added an English-language version in 2002. Dual citizen of Canada and Iran. Now pursuing MA in media studies at University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Claim to fame: One of the first people to blog in Farsi, the Persian language. Credited with sparking the blogging revolution in Iran by disseminating simple instructions on how to adapt free online tools to handle Persian characters.

Blogging in Iran: Estimates of the number of blogs range upwards of 800,000, though not all are actively maintained. Relatively few are political. Blogs about culture, the arts and technology are popular.

Prominent blogger: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Harassment: Iranian regime has blocked Mr. Derakhshan's blog since 2004. During visit to Iran in 2005, was detained, questioned about the blog's content and forced to sign an apology. Because he visited Israel in January 2006, can no longer enter Iran.

Shifting views: Has ceased external criticism of Iranian regime because of concern over western efforts to demonize Iran. Believes reform debate should continue, but internally. Outspoken opponent of military action against Iran; supports Iranian nuclear weapons for defensive purposes.

Legal troubles: Served with $2-million defamation suit by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at U.S. think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, for critical comments posted on his blog.

Appearance in Ottawa: Hossein Derakhshan will take part in a roundtable discussion on the media and democratic development from 1 to 3 p.m. today at IDRC's head office, 150 Kent St. Other panellists are Chilean journalist Alejandra Matus, South African journalist Mathatha Tsedu and Humaira Habib, who runs a women's community radio station in Afghanistan. Registration to the event is closed. For information, call 613-236-6163, ext. 2244.

'Free Haleh' and its links to 'pro-democracy' projects

Did you know that 'Free Haleh', the most active online campaign about Esfandiari's prosecution in Iran, is run by the pro-Bush, pro-Iraqi invasion, Zainab Al-Swaiji of the American Islamic Council? The other noteworthy fact is that Free Haleh is hosted by Middle East Youth (its staff), another neo-conservative-leaning 'pro-democracy' project.

Refuting Khalaji's mistranslated threat of legal action

As you might have seen, only a few bloggers wrote anything against the termination of my previous web host account as a result of the threat of a defamation lawsuit by Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at Washington's Institute.

Most of those who reacted, simply, took the terribly mistranslated text -- sent by Khalaji's lawyer to my web host and my domain registrar -- as utter truth and their defence of me was only from the free speech point of view.

As if I had manufactured the evidence based on which I wrote my post on Mehdi Khalaji; and that he is nothing but an innocent, poor victim of my 'defamation' who had just reacted too harshly to my writings.

Almost no one, except for Niki Akhavan, pointed out the mistranslations in Khalaji's lawyer's note (and its typos too) and almost no one acknowledged that the facts I had gathered about Khalaji were not false.

So what follows is a detailed and documented refutation of what Mehdi Khalaji's lawyer called my 'defamatory statements' against his client. You will also see how they have mistranslated my original post to construct their threat.

These defamatory statements by Hossein Derakhshan directly and by innuendo:

a) state falsely that our client is a traitor to the government and people of Iran;

Mehdi Khalaji is hired by a think-tank, created by the Israeli lobbying group in the US (AIPAC)^[1] and has openly advocated for military action^[2] or economic sanctions^[3] to overthrow the government of Iran^[4]. Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey, all strong advocates for regime change in Iran^[5][6], are on its board^[7].

Washington Institute for the Near East Policy (WINEP), Mr. Khalaji works for^[8], has a clear agenda against Iran and that makes Mr. Khalaji, an Iranian citizen, a 'traitor' based on the definition of the word. (The American Heritage dictionary defines 'traitor' as “One who betrays one's country, a cause, or a trust.”^[9])

b) state falsely that our client has worked for U.S. Vice-President Cheney's office; and by innuendo is a dupe or puppet of the U.S. government;

Mistranslated. The correct translation is that Mr. Khalaji “indirectly” and “through WINEP” gives advise to vice-president Cheney's office.

WINEP's director, Robert Satloff says that its products have been made accessible to “high-level Washington-based officials, prominent journalists, and senior diplomats.”^[10] Vice-president's office is surly where many “high-level Washington-based officials” work and therefore WINEP's products, that includes Mr. Khalaji's contribution, reach Mr. Cheney's office.

There are also strong ties between WINEP and Cheney's office. For example, John P. Hannah, a deputy director of WNEP now serves^[11] at a high position at the vice-president's office since 2001.

c) state falsely that our client has counselled the Vice-President of the United States of America to bomb our client's former offices in Iran;

Mistranslated. What I have written is that it is Mr. Cheney who wants to bomb Iran^[12], not that Mr. Khalaji advises him to do so. Mehdi Khalaji has worked ^[13] as a section editor in a newspaper, titled Entekhab run by Taha Hashemi, a cleric appointee^[14] of Ayatollah Khamenei in a government-funded organization related to the Qom's clerical school.

Mr. Khalaji wrote later in an article for the BBC Persian that the publishers of Entekhab had the personal support of Ayatollah Khamenei for the newspaper.^[15]

A military attack on Iran surly could also destroy the building of Entekhab newspaper in central Tehran, where Mehdi Khalaji was once working.

d) state falsely that our client has counselled the Vice-President of the United States of America to bomb our thousands of men, women and children;

Mistranslated. Again, what I have written is that it is Cheney who wants to bomb Iran, not that Khalaji advises him to do so. Obviously thousands of men and women and children would be killed in a military strike against Iran.

e) state falsely that our client counsels enemies of Iran and of humanity;

Based on its output, it's clear that WINEP does not have a friendly policy toward Iran and openly advocates for regime change. So they are enemies of Iran and Khalaji counsels them.

Given the grave consequences of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq, I believe those who supported and administered that invasion are enemies of humanity. At least two of these people, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle are on WINEP's board where Khalaji counsels and WINEP had repeatedly and openly supported the invasion.^[16]

f) incites others to follow the defamer Hossein Derakhshan's lead by spitting in our client's face;

Mistranslated. The correct translation reads “I don't know what name you want to give this conscious intellectual contribution by Mr. Khalaji to the most merciless and dirtiest enemies of Iran and humanity. But I know that if someday I face him in person, instead of saying hello, I will through a big spit on his face.” There is nothing inciting others to do anything here.

g) state falsely that our client holds and publicizes the belief that political change is not possible from within Iran;

This is not false. Mehdi Khalaji finishes his presentation at the AFPC meeting with the following paragraph in which he bluntly rejects the possibility of reform (5' 55 form the video)^[17]:

“The majority of people might not be [unclear word] to the political agenda of the government, but instead suffer from its policy and restrictions upon social freedom without possessing any concrete effective means for any change or reform. Idealism has been reconstructed not only in terms of government's perception of politics, but also in terms of citizens public ambitions. Thus, the regime seems to be more solid and stable as ever before. Therefore the prospect of the prospect for political change is dark.”

Moreover, in an interview with Radio Zamaneh he adds “well, for me the Islamic Republic is similar to Dariush Mehrjooie's film, 'Ejarehneshin-ha.' The owner of the building... doesn't permit any minor changes... Then what will happen? The whole building collapses.”^[18]

h) state falsely that our client struggles to converse and express himself in the English language;

Mistranslated. Correct translation reads “Mehdi Khalaji, while sweating to read smoothly from the English translated text of his article.”

But it is true that Mr. Khalaji has problems, at least in terms of reading, pronunciation and intonation. The recorded video of his speech (mentioned above) clearly shows that Khalaji mispronounces or struggles to read and pronounces many words including 'entirety,' 'unprecedented' and ' judicial.'

i) state falsely that our client counsels the government of the United States of America to choose military action and economic sanctions against Iran, over and instead of diplomatic talks;

Mistranslated. The correct translation reads that Khalaji “tried to show why political change from within is impossible in Iran and therefore the U.S., in order to remove 'the increasing threat by Iran against world piece' should not negotiate with Iran. Instead, through economic sanctions (or implicitly even through military invasion if its it was feasible.)”

Khalaji said these words in a conference to an audience at the AFPC, not to the government. I didn't quoted from him, but sumerised in my own words what could he ultimately mean by his speech.

The words in quotation mark ('the increasing threat by Iran against world piece') refers to a widely used theme by the media and the politicians and by doing so I'm trying to mock the sterotypical aspect of those words.

j) state falsely that our client's academic research paper are in reality thinly veiled instruction manuals on how to locate and attack the weaknesses of the legitimate government of Iran;

In May 2006, Mehdi Khalaji says to a Wall Street Journal reporter “Western countries must push the internal conflicts inside the Iranian government.”^[19]

In July 2007, in an article published on WINEP's website, Khalaji writes:

“For the West, there are many advantages if Iran's leadership is weakened by internal disputes. Such an Iran would be busier domestically and therefore less able to concentrate on foreign adventures. It would also be more aware of its weaknesses and therefore more likely to compromise. To be sure, a weak Supreme Leader would presumably have less authority to impose difficult compromises on objecting factions. That, however, seems like a price worth paying in order to see a less powerful revolutionary leadership.“^[20]

k) state falsely that our client is a proponent of, and openly supports, civil unrest, revolution and a regime change in Iran through the use of the military, and violence if necessary; and

Mistranslated. I never implied Khalaji supports violent change. It is Khalaji's employer, the Washington Institute, who has advocated regime change through violence.

In February 2007, Jeffery White, a defence fellow at the Washington Institute, writes^[21]:

“The choices for dealing with the Iranian challenge, both in and outside Iraq, are not clear, and the consequences of making the wrong choices are dire. But by the time the choices are clear, it will be too late for anything but acquiescence to the presence of a nuclear-armed Iran driven by hostility toward the West -- or a war to prevent it. “

But in his interview with Radio Zamaneh he explicitly advocates for a 'fundamental change', defining it as the removal of Ayatollah Khamanei, the Supreeme leader of the Islamic Republic, in a similar fashion to non-violent revolutions in Eastern Europe. He then adds that this fundamental change is “impossible without foreign assistance.”^[22]

l) clearly evidence a personal vendetta being waged by Hossein Derakhshan against our client, under the guise of alleged "commentary."

Before Khalaji started working for the Washington Institute, I had written positive posts about him and his writings. ^{[23] [24]}

But since he started working for the neo-conservative Washington Institute with its clear agenda to overthrow the Islamic Republic, even through military action if necessary, I have been critical about Khalaji's contribution to such entity. The same way I have been critical of Mohsen Sazgera who was a fellow there before Khalaji. ^[25]

I have never met Khalaji and never had anything personal against him, either in public or private and what I have written about him is only based on his work.

At the same time, I am a established commentator on Iranian affairs. Aside from my bilingual blog that I have written in the past six years, I am a columnist for The Guardian^[26], Washington Post^[27] websites. My writings have also appeared on The New York Times^[28], International Herald Tribune^[29],, BBC News^[30], Die Zeit^[31], etc. and I have been interviewed by various print or broadcast media on Iranian affairs. ^[32]

1. ^ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
2. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2520
3. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=257
4. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/download.php?file=Soref2006.pdf
5. ^ http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=4200
6. ^ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3422.htm
7. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC11.php?CID=133
8. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC10.php?CID=33
9. ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/traitor
10. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC11.php?CID=21
11. ^ http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/2926
12. ^ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18834.html
13. ^ http://news.gooya.eu/politics/archives/2007/04/058513.php
14. ^ http://www.shareh.com/new/persian/magazine/hawzah/61/01.htm
15. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/story/2005/08/printable/050803_mj-mkhalaji-qom-press.shtml
16. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=1486
17. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAhLUjGPJ8Y
18. ^ http://www.radiozamaneh.org/special/2007/04/post_188.html
19. ^ http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=110008382
20. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2638
21. ^ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2567
22. ^ http://www.radiozamaneh.org/special/2007/04/post_188.html
23. ^ http://i.hoder.com/archives/2003/08/030805_007814.shtml
24. ^ http://i.hoder.com/linkdooni/2004_03.html
25. ^ http://i.hoder.com/archives/2005/03/050322_013794.shtml
26. ^ http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/hossein_derakhshan/index.html
27. ^ http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/hossein_derakhshan/
28. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/opinion/28Derakhshan.html
29. ^ http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/30/opinion/edhossein.php
30. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4947354.stm
31. ^ http://www.zeit.de/2005/27/Iran
32. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Derakhshan#References

DW preferrs RSF to its critic

In last year's DWblog awards, I objected to an award sponsored and also dictated by Reports Sans Frontier on many grounds. Most important of which was the fact that unlike other jury members, RSF has a clear political agenda to demonise countries who happen to be those disliked by the United States, like Iran, China, Cuba and since last year apparently Russia. (I have written before about RSF's agenda before: here, here and here)

Long story short, I sensed that the DW-Online's staff and managers didn't like the challenge I posed against RSF and I decided not to accept their invitation this year, if RSF is still involved -- and I guess I even raised that with some of the DW staff.

Now I just saw on their website that the jury members for 2007 awards are announced and RSF's Julien Pain, who is a great guy but works for a terrible organisation, is on the jury again.

It is unfortunate that Deutche Welle has allowed RSF again to use its jury's and its own credibility for RSF's clear political agenda. But I don't think there is anything I could do now.

Masih Alinejad has replaced with me as the jury member for Iranian blogs, and even though I have never met her, I have followed her work and I think she's a great choice. I wish her success and I hope this year, in my absence, the jury sessions would not be too boring. :)

I also have to confess that I feel I am gradually getting isolated since I stopped looking at Iran and myself from the stereotypical Western point of view. It feels great, especially now, after being kicked out by my hosting company.

In last year's DW blog awards (The Best of the Blogs or The BOBs), I objected to an award sponsored and also dictated by Reports Sans Frontier on many grounds. Most important of which was the fact that unlike other jury members, RSF has a clear political agenda to demonise countries who happen to be those disliked by the United States, like Iran, China, Cuba and since last year apparently Russia. (I have written before about RSF's agenda before: here, here and here)

Long story short, I sensed that the DW-Online's staff and managers didn't like the challenge I posed against RSF and I decided not to accept their invitation this year, if RSF is still involved -- and I guess I even raised that with some of the DW staff.

Now I just saw on their website that the jury members for 2007 awards are announced and RSF's Julien Pain, who is a great guy but works for a terrible organisation, is on the jury again.

It is unfortunate that Deutche Welle has allowed RSF again to use its jury's and its own credibility for RSF's clear political agenda. But I don't think there is anything I could do now.

Masih Alinejad has replaced with me as the jury member for Iranian blogs, and even though I have never met her, I have followed her work and I think she's a great choice. I wish her success and I hope this year, in my absence, the jury sessions would not be too boring. :)

I also have to confess that I feel I am gradually getting isolated since I stopped looking at Iran and myself from the stereotypical Western point of view. It feels great, especially now, after being kicked out by my hosting company.

More silence than sympathy

While almost everyone in the Iranian blogosphere and also the Iran-based or foreign-based Persian media outlets are dead silent on this unprecedented violation of free speech among Iranian blogs, some principled individuals have expressed concern in their English language blogs:

Niki Akhavan writes:

Whatever personal or political differences people have with Hossein, it's the responsibility of those of us who blog in English to expose the repressive and underhanded tactics of Iranians like Khalaji and the right-wing institutions for which they work. The same people and institutions that thrust themselves to the frontlines of debates about "democracy in Iran" and "freedom of expression" are quick to mobilize their financial resources and connections to muzzle the voice of one person who uses his blog to uncover just a few cogs in the wheels of what seems like a veritable anti-Iran industry. [...] Hossein Derakhshan is not a threat to Khalaji or the Washington Institute because of the content of what he said. What he has written about places like the Washington Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy is based on information that is widely and publicly available, often from the websites of these institutions themselves. Hossein's grave sin is that he wrote this material in Persian , and this is the real danger he poses for the Khalajis and their employers.

Nart Villeneue writes:

The blocking of websites by national filtering systems make content unavailable to those in such countries, but the deletion of content makes it unavailable to all. The blog of my friend Hossein was recently shutdown due to legal threats, making it unavailable to all while it was previously only censored in Iran. Threatening ISP’s with “take down” requests is one of the most undocumented methods of censoring Internet content. Some sites, such as ChillingEffects document this to some degree but most cases occur in silence. Since much of it is related to copyright violations or terrorism few are paying close attention. Libel and defamation cases are more notable especially the cases in Malaysia and Singapore.

Nima Milaninia writes:

The following assessment by Host Matters is scary. It creates the unfortunate precedent of allowing large media figures to shut down speech by apparently harassing a web host for a week. Moreover, Hosting Matters is most likely immune from liability even if Hossein committed defamation. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) says that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” [..]

Underlying these legal arguments, however, is the plain fact that Hosting Matters’ actions are disturbing. Shutting down a blog and seeking to control its contents, even though it is legally permissible, is not an action ANY service provider should be committing. Its enough that all bloggers and activists take notice and petition against their action.

A threat to all of us

This is an email I just sent to some friends. Feel free to spread the word please and note that this is a threat to all of us who have a blog or have any presence online.

Dear friends,

While everyone is on holidays, a new blow to online free speech has taken place and I would like to share it with you and ask for help..

Last Friday, I was kicked out of my hosting company (Florida-based Hosting Matters), as a result of a legal notice sent by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at a neo-conservative think-tank (Washington Institute for the Near East Policy with Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey on its advisory board).

Mhedi Khalaji's lawyer has sent a notice to my hosting company and also my domain registrar, Go Daddy, asking them to a) remove any 'defamatory' material about him, b) make me publish an apology, and c) pay $10,000 for the claimed damages

The lawyers claim are based on a mistranslation of a post I had written a few months ago about Khalaji and his support for a disgusting anti-Iranian campaign (http://www.afpc.org/IFI/iranfreedom.shtml) at another neo-conservative think-tank (American Foreign Policy Council) and his counsel to a think-tank with a clear agenda to overthrow the Iranian government by an economic warfare or a military attack.

The hosting company, clearly intimidated, asked me (documented below) to remove that specific post and also any material related to Mehdi Khalaji, since they didn't have enough resources to figure if they were actually defamatory or not.

I removed the mentioned post, but resisted against such strange request to remove anything I had written, mentioning Mehdi Khalaji.

Then last Friday, I noticed that the hosting company had actually removed, from my web serve and even my blogging software's database, any post where Mehdi Khalaji was named in English.

After threatening me not to disclose what the hosting company did, and after a few email exchanges, they terminated my account.

I have now migrated to a new hosting company, outside the United States, still struggling to get my numerous domain names, databases and online applications back and running.

This is a threat to all of us who write anything online these days. If someone could silence whatever he or she didn't like, even before a court order and based on intimidating hosting and domain registrar companies and based on mistranslated material, we would all going to be in big trouble soon.

It's all quite ironic that the way I am treated in the United States (by being kicked out of my servers) is worse than that in the Islamic Republic of Iran (by filtering my blog and forcing me to sign apology when I was last in Tehran). Ever more ironic is that a blog I was editing to cover internet censorship in Iran has also been shut down.

Please feel free to blog this and spread the word any way you can. I'll keep you post about the new developments by email, and as well on my temporary blog on blogspot (http://hodertempblog.blogspot.com).

Here are the supporting documents:

1) The initial legal notice from Khalaji's lawyer:
http://hoder.com/weblog/images/khalajithreat.pdf

2) Email exchange with the hosting company led to termination of my accounts:
http://hodertemp.blogspot.com/2007/08/accounts-and-billing-hosting-matters.html

3) My trouble with Islamic Republic of Iran's authorities:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/03/70522

Warm regards,

How Hosting Matters kicked me out: email exchanges

Persian bloggers, even my own (former) friends, can be so nasty.

Some are skeptical if what I say about being kicked out of my previous hosting account in Hosting Matters, as a result of Mehdi Khalaji's threat of a taking them and me and my domain registrar to court, is actually true.

So even though I guess it might cause some problems later on, I have published the entire email exchange I had with my hosting company over Mehdi Khalaji's threat. Please take a look and share it with others.

Temporary move to blogspot

The new hosting account I have bought is a bit more sophisticated than the previous one and runs on with different arrangements. Therefore, I haven't managed to properly install my blogging software (Movable Type) there yet.

That's why I decided to continue on blogspot for now, until the problem is fixed. So please bear with me.

The land of liberty -- and lawyers

Last night Hosting Matters abruptly terminated both my accounts on their server, because I noticed they had removed ANY English post where Mehdi Khalaji was mentioned. Not only from my web directories, but also from my blogging software database. Then they threatened me not to reveal anything about what they had done or they would sue me!

Fortunately, I had backed up all my data on both servers. But I'm still frustrated and puzzled at why were they so scared?

I'm considering taking legal action against Hosting Matters for its unethical conduct that has and is going to cost me a lot of time and money and energy.

Anyway, I'm now using a new hosting account I have recently bought. But I have to migrate dozens of domain names, software and plugins, blogs and databases to the new server and this takes a lot of time and energy -- and also technical expertise which I don't have when it comes to Virtual Private Servers.

So in the past 24 hours I've just managed to setup my email address and my main domain names and a tiny part of my archive, especially for my Persian blog.

I'm writing these lines using manual HTML coding and I guess I would have to do this until I finish the migration process, most likely in the next few days.

Let's see what Mehdi Khalaji, the Washington Institute's fellow, is going to do next to silence someone who thinks he is helping the enemies of Iran and humanity.

Here is the backgroud of the story, in case you don't understand what is happening here: Part one, part two

Hosting Matters, intimidated by Mehdi Khalaji, removes my posts and kicks me out

I can't believe this!

Hosting Matters, my hosting company, has removed two of my posts abot Mehdi Khalaji's attempts to shut down this blog from my movable type database without even letting me know. (Cached versions: here and here)

They have threatened me to remove anything I've written about Mehdi Khalaji, or they suspend my account. After objecting to it and telling them that I would consider suing them for violating my rights, they have now asked me to leave!

I'm beginning to think that this guy is really supported by the people who are on the board of where he works for, i.e. Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey.

Why does Mehdi Khalaji want no one know about whom he work for?

Why 'Stop censoring us' is discontinued

I have discontinued a website I made in 2003 to watch Internet censorship in Iran and here is a note, posted on its front page, to expalin why:

Dear Readers,

Internet censorship exists in Iran, as it does in many other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.

But it has recently become another pretext for the American Empire to further demonise the government of Iran.

Despite all problems and challenges, I believe that Islamic Republic is a legitimate, sovereign and democratic system and I reject any attempts to participate in such nasty demonising campaigns, which ultimately try to justify the Western intervention.

I believe that Internet censorship is an internal problem and the only way to solve it should also come and develop from within. Taking such efforts beyond Iran and into the international scene will benefit the American politicians more than the Iranian internet users.

Therefore, although this website has not been updated for almost a year, I now officially shut it down.

I should thank Sanam Dolatshahi and and PY whose help in the final months was very important and much appreciated.

If I have time and energy, I will relaunch the website in Persian with the same focus on Internet censorship in Iran, but this time in a local scale because of the language.

Best,

- Hossein Derakhshan

Jahanshah Javid boycotts Chalghooz, a new parody website

After publishing 13 issues of Gooz Online, a parody of the Rafsanjanist propaganda website, Rooz Online, me and my partner decided to shut it down and republish it with a different name.

So the new name is Chalghooz and we want to satirise and expose the entire anti-Iranian propaganda and regime change campaign, especially those being done by some 'reformists' such as Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji, also Abbas Milani and Reza Pahlavi.

But somehow predictably, everyone has boycotted us: Almost no blog or website has linked to us. However we've managed to have over 140,000 page views since 10 June.

The most surprising website that has boycotted us is actually Jahanshah Javid's Iranian. Despite his explicit claims that he publishes any content people send to him, and despite the tagline of Iranian.com which is "Nothing is sacred," Mr. Javid has refused to republish Gooz or Chalghooz issue on the Iranian.com.

This is from the one hand sad that even for the most progressive websites on Iran, picking on neo-liberals or 'reformists' is actually quite sacred, unlike what they try to show off.

From the other hand it proves that we are hitting right on target in exposing the hypocrisy among the so-called reformists when it comes to free speech.

As, Ebrahim Nabavi, one of these exiled reformists put it recently in a series of angry posts and comments on his blog and elsewhere, no one is allowed "to criticise respectful people like Ganji and Ebadi." So obviously the boycott is just the price we have to pay for questioning the 'reformist' Gods.

Stop censoring us is back

Towards the end of the year, amidst my crazy life as a modern gypsy, I forgot to renew a valuable domain name: Stop censoring us.

But thanks to its new owner who accepted to sell me back the domain for 20 dollars, the only and the oldest source of information (since 2003) about Internet censorship in Iran is back online. (It badly needs to be updated too.)

Ever since it suddenly disappeared, some people quickly started to speculate about the behind the scenes reasons of the incident. Those who are already disturbed by my new understanding of the world as a globalised Iranian and my increasing support for the Islamic Republic as an unprecedented legitimate, democratic anti-Imperial movement, were impatient enough to fit this into their conspiracy-driven mind and cal it as another evidence that I have indeed become a paid agent of the Islamic Republic.

But let me tell you that stop censoring us will continue working until no website, including my own blogs, is blocked in Iran. Yes, I support the Islamic Republic, but I also try to change it for a more tolerant and just system. Unlike most Iranian exilés who have preferred to stand with the U.S. Empire against their own country and their own people.

Video Stream: 'Le Web 3' Presentation

Thanks to vpot.tv a recorded video version of my presentation in Paris last December in Le Web 3 conference is now online. In it I've tried to provide a broader and more fair definition of Internet censorship in the world, focusing on Iran.

Other presentations are available at the same website. Just search for leweb3 and you'll find them. I can't link to them, since everything is in bloody Flash!

Calling hacktivists for disrupting Ahmadinejad's pre-emptive war against Persian websites and blogs

The press deputy at the Ministry of Culture in Iran has announced that all Iranians who hold a blog or a website should register them within two month.

Based on a recently written law in Ahmadinejad's cabinet, which surprisingly has not received enough media attention, any type of online content (in Persian language, I supposed) unregistered websites or blogs are going to be filtered after the deadline.

There are many noteworthy details about this new regulations that I have to talk about later, but I think it is outrageous, unconstitutional, and impractical -- very hard to enforce. (Will elaborate later.)

The registration is to be done in a website, titled "Samandehi," which means "giving order" or "regulating" in this context and is the title of the law too. So you should fill out a form with your name, birth certificate number, address, telephone, email address and your submitted website's address. Then they send you an automatic email and give you a username and password for possible future changes.

But the funny thing is that when I did that for hoder.com they automatically sent an email to info@hoder.com which actually doesn't exist as an email address. They didn't even use my main email I'd given.

Basically, it's quite a primitive way of gathering information in a database and there is so much room for abusing the forms and filling out the forms with totally false information.

So now, since I think this is totally outrageous and unconstitutional, because it denies the basic rights of free expression, explained by the articles 23 and 24 of the Islamic Republic constitution:

Bq.. Article 23
The investigation of individuals' beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.

Article 24
Publications and the press have freedom of expression except when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public. The details of this exception will be specified by law.

You can even use the article 22 to argue that websites are private properties, like people's homes, and the government can't regulate them pre-emotively:

Article 22
The dignity, life, property, rights, residence, and occupation of the individual are inviolate, except in cases sanctioned by law.

Anyway, legal discussion aside, I think I'm not going to comply with such outrageous and blunt violation of my basic rights as an Iranian citizen and I will encourage everyone to either ignore it or disrupt it using the concept of Hacktivism.

The best way to disrupt it could be submitting valid-looking misinformation for known websites and blogs to confuse the authorities, and also to fill the database with spam.

If you've got better ideas, please share it and spread the word. We must disrupt this outrageous violation of free speech and individual rights in Iran.

Le Web 3: A Broader Defenition of Internet Censorship

I haven't had a chance to follow the aftermaths of Le Web 3 conference in Paris. But I think despite its minimal organization team, it was a success on many levels, especially the logistics.

The first day was more a platform for businesses to market their brands and products, to be honest. But there is nothing wrong with that, I suppose, in a business conference. After all, the conference was not an academic one.

But the second day was more interesting. Even though I missed the first half of the second day, including Shimon Peres' surprise speech and a few other interesting panel, such as the one about the future of gaming and Danah Boyd's presentation on teenagers' use of the internet.

Loic had suggested me to meet with Peres and take some photos, but I didn't feel comfortable, to be honest. I was not sure meeting with a former senior official of Israel, who has actually said quite harsh stuff against Iran lately, would be a wise thing to do -- at least in that context. But the reason I missed his speech had nothing to do with that.

The reason was the party the night before which was one of the highlights of the whole event, and also the fact that I was still preparing my presentation in the last hours.

The party (some pictures) was actually quite funny. It was in a place called Bodego which was about to officially open a few days later.It was reserved for the conference attendees that was , predictably, dominated by men. So the first couple of hours the club was full of men. The bar was so busy it took half an hour for me to get a drink. (There was a gorgeous bartender there, by the way, called Colleta, I suppose, that I think had fascinated all the internet addict crowd. She's the one on the left here.)

The few women who were present, didn't dare coming to the dance floor in the beginning. But after many of the men left for different reasons, the crowd reached to a more or less balance and people started to feel comfortable -- and obviously drunk -- and started to dance to the music which was quite eclectic. I specifically liked a remix of the famous Pink Floyd song, Another Brick In The Wall, which I don't usually like, for I've heard it too many times. I wish the DJ had played more rock songs. Dancing to punk-rock, indie-rock, electro-pop, etc. is most fun for me. I get bored dancing to other types of music.

Anyway, the fun night ended with my sexy broken laptop., doing research for my presentation about internet censorship. I wanted to look at censorship in a different way and provide a broader definition of it and breaking some stereotypes, especially on Iran. (Check out a short report about it, plus some reactions from bloggers and some pictures -- Yes, i was wearing my I love Tehran t-shirt again.)

Later I'm going to write an article about it somewhere, but before that I'm going to post the presentation file here.

It was quite late when Loic added me to the program. I'm happy he didn't ignore the the more important non-commercial issues facing the web today in this conference. I hope he continues doing that in the coming years.

Technorati vs. Unicode

Believe it or not, the over-hyped Technorati, still doesn't support unicode queries, despite its claims to be the single best source on the state of blogging in the world.

Six month ago I wrote in this blog:

Just go and search for these three widely used words in Persian,
Arabic and Hebrew. You'll get ZERO results:
امروز
عراق
הארץ

How can Mr. Sifry's Technorati be "the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs," when they can't even show a single result for queries in at least these three languages whose blogospheres could easily be as big as one million blogs in total?

David Sifry then replied:

Actually, it is because our parsing of farsi, Arabic, and Hebrew aren't very good right now. We're actually working on building out our search support for more languages, and these 3 are important. But it'll still be a while until things are much improved. Sorry...

Six months on, there has been no improvement. So I wonder how Technorati allows itself to say anything about blogs that use Unicode scripts.

Technorati continues to suck

Just go and search for these three widely used words in Persian,
Arabic and Hebrew. You'll get ZERO results:
امروز
عراق
הארץ

How can Mr. Sifry's Technorati be "the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs," when they can't even show a single result for queries in at least these three languages whose blogospheres could easily be as big as one million blogs in total?

Flickr for Audio

After discovering Daily Motion, which is basically Flickr for video, what I need now is a Flickr for Audio. I want to upload my audio clips , tag them and add a few pictures to them too, like a slide show.

Does anyone know anything like that?

P.S: With BubbleShare you can record a short audio clip on each of your photos in a slideshow. But i still want something more sophisticated.

BBC Persian filtered

BBC ‌‌Persian's website, which is the most popular among the BBC World Service's websites has been filtered by the Iranian government for the first time.

Entekhab, a conservative news website close to Ali Larijani, is also filtered.

Ahmadinejad and allies have started expanding their power in the system and these two are small but significant signs of such changes.

UPDATE:
- Comments on Sobhaneh, the collaborative news blog I run, confirm that now it's even filtered by the big ISPs in Tehran, such as Pars Online, Datak, etc. So it's now certain that it's a new government policy.

Google Groups filtered in Iran

I just realised that all discussion groups at Google Groups are filtered by the government of Iran. This is really frustrating, since I just managed to move email subscribers to my blog from another service to Google Groups.

If they could use other domain or sub-domain names for Groups, it'd be an easy solution.

Also if they could think of a way people could confirm their subscription to groups by email, instead of going to Google Group's website, it'd be a big help.

The problem now is that although they can receive email from Google Groups, they can't join it or confirm their invitations, since the process is done on groups.google.com, which is apparently filtered in Iran.

Dear Google! We really need you help.

Blogosphere attacked

Shargh newspaper reports that Iran's Telecom company has ordered all ISPs to filter blogrolling.com.

Blogrolling, owned by Canada-based Tucows, provides a popular free service for bloggers who want to track their favorites weblogs and automatically be informed when they get updated.

The service, which is widely popular among Iranian bloggers, effectively connects blogs and help form a community or a loose network of like-minded bloggers.

Many bloggers perceive this as an 'attack' to the Persian blogosphere. "I don't know what would happen next, but this is just the beginning," the writer of 'Persian Buddy' wrote in his blog.

"Soon they are going to filter blogger.com itself and we can do nothing about it," he wrote.

From stop.censoring.com.

P.S: Can anyone slashdot this?

Wiki-ocracy @ Wikimania

Damn it! I'm in Frankfurt now for the first Wikimenia conference, which I have to say is much more successful and popular than I was thinking. But I missed all today's panels, because I missed my train from Zurich and it takes four hours from there to Frankfurt.

I also regret that I wasn't here during the 'Wiki and politics' panel. But actually I had no idea it had been added to the program.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon -- when many would have left Frankfurt already-- I'm going to talk about how Wiki's can contribute to democracy in Iran and will talk about the new project we've started to change the Iranian constitution with Wikis.

If you won't be able to attend my panel tomorrow, I'd suggest you to read my latest article for openDemocracy, entitled 'Wiki-ocracy' about why Wikis are important for politics.

iTunes fail Persian

I'm glad that Apple has acknowledged PodCasts in the new version of its iTunes. But it's such a shame it doesn't have Persian (Farsi) among its supported language.

There are more than a dozen Persian podcasts out there now after I introduced it in my Persian blog a few months ago. They are a big step towards a free socio-political media space and they contribute to the process of democracy in Iran.

Please write to them and ask them to add Persian to their supported langauges.

Help wanted: WordPress plug-in developer

I'm using the amazing WordPress in Sobhaneh (Breakfast), a MetaFilter-allike collective blog.

But since WordPress is rarely used as community blog, there are many administrative problems for which there is no plugin or hack available.

So I was wondering if a nice PHP developer would be interested to write a few plugins or hacks for Sobhaneh.I'm using the amazing WordPress in Sobhaneh (Breakfast), a MetaFilter-allike collective blog.

But since WordPress is rarely used as community blog, there are many administrative problems for which there is no plug-in or hack available.

So I was wondering if a nice PHP developer would be interested to write a few plugging or hacks for Sobhaneh.

Northern Voice's name tags

It's not very comfortable to see the sponsoring company's name on Northern Voices conference participants' name tags is bigger than participants name.

You probably think neither it's nice to complain about a conference that has paid for your ticket, hotel, etc. But I should say that it's not the case here. They didn't pay for any of the above, at least not for me.

On the other hand, they were kind enough to squeeze me into one of their panels, even though they had already wrapped up the whole conference. I owe this to the Seb Paquet and Brian Lamb.

Lifting embargo on free speech

I really believe it's time to use the momentum that "freedom for repressed people" rhetoric of Bush has created and ask for some of the stupid parts of the US embargo on Iran that only harm the free speech of the Iranian people to be lifted.

We should bear in mind that two groups benefit most from a silence Iran in the international scene: Iranian militants and American neo-conservatives. Without an active and outspoken Iranian public, both these groups would easily manipulate the reality of Iran only to progress their radical agenda.

Best recent examples of such stupid measures by US companies as a result of the embargo policy are:

• Domain registrar GoDaddy's ban on clients from Iran, Iraq and a few other countries to register domain names
• Hosting company The Planet's termination of several accounts owned by Iranians.

I think the whole thing deserves more attention from the American liberal media and, honestly, it's a perfect topic for editorial writers of liberal newspapers, such as New York Times. Can anyone help?

American host rejects Iranians - More details

While I admit that my last entry, especially its title, was a bit exagerated, I'm still looking into the story to figure out what exactly has happened.

On a hosting-related forum, you can find some of the emails exchanged between The Planet and one of the blocked costumers.

However, it's still a question to me that whether The Planet has terminated every account by anyone who has declared to be Iranian, or is it only limited to one or two specific accounts, which might have really violated the terms they'd accepted.

I'm also trying to find out if there has been any other similar termination of service on other hosting companies, if they declare they are Iranian.

But the bottom line, to me, is that all these restrictions are mostly limiting the free speech of ordinary Iranian people. Imagine a day when no American hosting copmany let any Iranian have an account. Wouldn't that only help the regime to silence its repressed people? Does the US really want to make a North Korea of Iran?

The following are the tickets The Planet and at least three Iranian costumers (c19559noor, c13333oxyg and c14849iran) have exchanged:

--------------------------------
Service Termination Notice
Existing Details:
------------------------------------------

(fcastle-01/13/05-18:11):
Customer,

As per our Terms of Services (www[dot]servermatrix.com/terms.html)
your services will be terminated 48 hours after the opening of this
ticket. Please take this time to backup and copy any pertinant
information you may have on your server(s).

This is non-negotiable and is final.

- ServerMatrix reserves the right to discontinue service to any
subscriber it deems, in its sole discretion, violates any condition of
service including the Acceptable Use Policy, Data Center Rules and
Procedures, and Terms of Services.

Thanks.
--------------------------------------
(c19559noor-01/14/05-04:15):
Dear Sir
Can I know the reason?
also we have get some of our servers from theplqanet.com
is this Termination include thoase servers?
Thanks
------------------------------------------

(rcarter-01/14/05-08:58):
The termination will include any and all services you have with us.

We apologize for the inconvenience but unfortunately, this is all the information I can give you.

Thanks.
__________________

Second one:

(fcastle-01/13/05-18:06):
Customer,

As per our Terms of Services (http://www.servermatrix.com/terms.html)
your services will be terminated 48 hours after the opening of this
ticket. Please take this time to backup and copy any pertinant
information you may have on your server(s).

This is non-negotiable and is final.

- ServerMatrix reserves the right to discontinue service to any
subscriber it deems, in its sole discretion, violates any condition of
service including the Acceptable Use Policy, Data Center Rules and
Procedures, and Terms of Services.

Thanks.
--------------------------------------
(c13333oxyg-01/14/05-01:01)::O :O :O

really whats up???

i didn't do anything :O really whats up???? please help me, i don't
know whats my fault.

i think this is misunderstanding :(

please, please, please don't cancel the server, i read that terms.
which part.....

Best Regards, Omid
--------------------------------------
(c13333oxyg-01/14/05-01:10):I don't violate to anyone :(
Really i don't, maybe my serrver cracked :(

please tell me WHY i should go out of business :( after canceling that
i must go die!!!! be sure that I, myself don't violate anyone. I am
the only that have access to server, but maybe they cracked it :(

(rcarter-01/14/05-09:04):
Unfortunately, we have no other information to provide to you.

We apologize for any inconvenience.
--------------------------------------
(c13333oxyg-01/14/05-09:34):what do you mean "no other information"????

you are going to close my account (with two servers) and don't have
any information?!!!

am i do anything wrong?!! so please tell me :(
--------------------------------------
(c13333oxyg-01/14/05-10:17):who knows information!!??
could you please give me a number and a name to call him/her??

i'm waiting......

Best Regards,
Omid

(rcarter-01/14/05-11:16):
As noted above:

This is non-negotiable and is final.

----------------------------------

Third one which belongs to ISNA:

---------------------------
(fcastle-01/13/05-18:07):
Customer,

As per our Terms of Services (http://www.servermatrix.com/terms.html)
your services will be terminated 48 hours after the opening of this
ticket. Please take this time to backup and copy any pertinant
information you may have on your server(s).

This is non-negotiable and is final.

- ServerMatrix reserves the right to discontinue service to any
subscriber it deems, in its sole discretion, violates any condition of
service including the Acceptable Use Policy, Data Center Rules and
Procedures, and Terms of Services.

Thanks.
--------------------------------------
(c14849iran-01/14/05-09:40):Dear Sir/Madam,
Hello,

I saw your ticket 2 hours ago, I was wondering why you want to terminate our service? we agree all terms and conditions and work legal on our server.
Please send me back your response, I'm waiting for your response.

Yours Sincerely,
Ahmad Reza Yousefi

(aparidy-01/14/05-05:54):
I am forwarding this ticket to our security department to answer any further questions you may have. Thank you for your patience.
--------------------------------------
(yousefi-01/14/05-06:09):Dear Sir/Madam,

About 5 minutes ago I talked with Joseph in your technical support Department. It's very important for us to know what's happening? as you know it's too difficult to change our server in only 48 hours because our server is running without any interrupt. Please send me back your answer as soon as possible and tell us the reason.
I as mentioned before we accept all terms and conditions and don't violate any terms.

Yours Sincerely
Ahmad Reza Yousefi
--------------------------------------
(yousefi-01/14/05-07:43):Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm waiting to get your response as soon as possible.

Yours Sincerely,
Ahmad Reza Yousefi
--------------------------------------
(c14849iran-01/14/05-11:09):Dear Sir/Madam,
Hello,

Would please tell us what's happening there? I was wondering why you want to terminate our service? as you know it's too difficult to change our server in only 48 hours because our server is running without any interrupt. Please send me back your answer as soon as possible and tell us the reason.
I as mentioned before we accept all terms and conditions and don't violate any terms.

Yours Sincerely
Ahmad Reza Yousefi

(rcarter-01/14/05-11:15):
Unfortunately, there is no other information I can provide you.

We apologize for any inconvenience but as noted above:

This is non-negotiable and is final.

Thanks.

US companies ban Internet for Iranians, almost

UPDATES:

• For those more interested in details, please contact Tehran-based Tech journalist, Shahram Sharif (sharif@itiran.com), who first broke the story on his blog, ITIran, and then wrote the story for the BBC Persian.
• Ahmad Yousefi, ISNA's technical manager (ah_yousefi@yahoo.com), can also be of help.

As if being censored by the regime hasn't been painful enough, now US based hosting copmanies have started to shut down private and governmental Iranian accounts with a short notice. (Source: BBC Perisan)

The latest victim is the students news agency (ISNA) which is ordered by its host, The Planet, to leave in 48 hours with no chance for furthur negotioations.

In other similar incidents, I've heard that many registrars such as GoDaddy doesn't allow Iranians to register domain names either. (See their official press release.)

I wonder whether this is what president Bush considers standing with a nation for their freedom. Who else is using these websites other than mostly secular, freedom-loving Iranian youth?

P.S: A paragraph in the US State Departmetn's "Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism" reads:

Terrorist Use of Information Technology

Terrorists have seized upon the worldwide practice of using information technology (IT) in daily life. They embrace IT for several reasons: it improves communication and aids organization, allows members to coordinate quickly with large numbers of followers, and provides a platform for propaganda. The Internet also allows terrorists to reach a wide audience of potential donors and recruits who may be located over a large geographic area.

In addition, terrorists are taking note of the proliferation of hacking and the use of the computer as a weapon. Extremists routinely post messages to widely accessible Web sites that call for defacing Western Internet sites and disrupting online service, for example. The widespread availability of hacking software and its anonymous and increasingly automated design make it likely that terrorists will more frequently incorporate these tools into their online activity. The appeal of such tools may increase as news media continue to sensationalize hacking.

No blogging, no social networking

Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling.

They have also ordered to filter Orkut, Yahoo Personals and some other popular dating and social networking websites.

For ISPs this means a big loss, since much of their recent sales have been because of people writing and reading blogs and surfing Orkut. So the government is effectively eliminating small and private ISPs by bankrupting them, whiteout paying a political price for it.

As I had said before, I think we can adopt a three-level strategy for fighting Net censorship in Iran:

1. Technical: using proxies, email, P2P applications, etc.
2. Civil: creating consumer associations for internet users and organizing effective campaigns through them against the censorship.
3. Legal: filing local or even international lawsuits against the government and related organizations or officials for violating the constitution of Iran and international law.

While still relevant and potentially effective, I believe they are not enough now.

The EU and the US must seriously consider demanding for an end to the Internet censorship during their negotiations with the Iranian government.

We also have to look for ways to beam Internet direcly to Iranian users in Tehran and other big cities via cheap satellite connections.

I call this "open access" and it's actually one of the projects a few friends and I are working on: to use millions of satellite dishes in Iranian houses to access the net, without interference of local ISPs.

UPDATES

- As usual, ParsOnline has been the first ISP to obey Telecom, followed by Datak, based on comments in Sobhaneh.

- Joi wonders about Typepad and LiveJournal. Actually, they have almost no user in Iran. Typepad for it requires credit card -- which doesn't exist in Iran -- and LiveJournal maybe because it's not localized yet.

- Mortazavi ordered recent filtering (from stop.censoring.us)

Bush website lacked resources

We have to admit it: we haven't got over the Bush's win yet. Our brilliant Torontonian Michelle asked why the Bushies had blocked international access to GerogeBush.com. Chuck, Bush-Cheney '04's e-campaign manager, answered: we had limited resources to get the President's message out.

Just unbelievable.

Newsweek on net censorship in Iran

Mainstream media seem to be paying more attention to non-nuclear issues in Iran.

Newsweek has something this week about the net censorship in Iran, with a mention of me, in its both U.S. and International editions (though the latter is a longer piece).

Christian Science Monitor also published a longer, well-written and more detailed piece about the new round of arrests and crackdown on the internet in Iran, last week.

Not to mention that BBC Online News, that has always been first to report about this issue, did a couple of short stories (one, two, three) about it in the past few weeks.

Country-wide Intranet

This country-wide Intranet that the Telecom officials in Iran are talking about worries me. They probably have concluded that filtering has not been effective enough and are seeking the ultimate solution: disconnecting ordinary Iranians from the Net, while they can access anything with the Iran-wide Intranet.

The project is called Shaareh 2 by the way.

Bush's false arguments

It's funny how similarly Bush and Khemeni live in fictional worlds when it comes to portraying situation in Iraq and Iran.

I'm also sick of Bush's argument that the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein. There are many world leaders that the world would be better off without them; does it justify attacking and invading them just because of that?

Moreover, who should decide which world leader should go? In other words, what if any country decides the