May 13, 2003

Those Crazy Mullahs

The BBC reports the Islamic tyrants running Iran have ordered Internet service providers to block about 15,000 websites, many of them political sites that make fun of religious and political figures. About two million Iranians have access to the Internet, and the web "has become an important outlet as an alternative method of communication in Iran, which maintains a close eye on the media," says the BBC. The Iranian regime is cracking down but it won't be long before it cracks completely and the pro-western, pro-democracy, pro-American majority in Iran lives in freedom. For the latest on Iran, see Iranian expat blogger Hossein Derakhshan's blog. And don't miss this Shift.com article from July 2002 explaining how Derakhshan enabled thousands of Iranians to become bloggers.

Most of these blogs host musings on the day-to-day lives of young Iranians. Filled with postings on music, movies, recreational drugs and girl/boyfriends, they map out a mental landscape that is heavily populated by references to Western culture. From Pink Floyd to pot smoking, it is clear that Iran's teenagers share a lot of ground with their counterparts in North America. To find these digital tableaux of youth culture frivolous, however, would be to miss the point. Self-expression is a rare privilege indeed in a country where even the elected government is controlled by a fiercely Muslim theocracy. For young women, it's often an impossibility. Yet through the anonymity that blogging can afford, those who once lacked voices are finally speaking up.

... According to Derakhshan, the religious right does not appear to understand the Pandora's Box of Information that the web is unleashing. The right's lack of awareness - or at least concern - about the blogging phenomenon cannot be taken for granted, however. Derakhshan, for example, will not be posting a link to this article on hoder.com, his Persian blog site. "Every day I worry that I'm going to hear from the Iranian government... The judiciary will ban any newspaper that crosses the line, but satellite TV and the internet are two things that they haven't been able to control. Yet. If one day, the hard-liners force the government to install a central filter on their uplink lines, nobody in Iran will be able to access the websites they ban. Imagine what would happen if they put a ban on Blogspot.com, where almost all Persian weblogs are hosted." For the time being, however, the number of voices contributing to the Persian blogging phenomenon continues only to grow.

UPDATE: Speaking of Iranian bloggers, Newsweek is reporting on the arrest of Sina Motallebi, an Iranian journalist and blogger who was held by the government for 22 days before being released.

He became the first blogger to be arrested. In Iran, where newspapers are routinely shut down for mysterious reasons and where journalists are imprisoned without explanation, blogs, or weblogs, have emerged as a last bastion of personal freedom - and the latest perceived menace for the Iranian government to grapple with.

So Motallebi has become a symbol - to the Iranian government as well as to his supporters - of the Internet-savvy Iranian youth growing in numbers, of their need for a space for self-expression, and of a repressive government crackdown on any structure that creates such a space. Fellow members of the blogosphere are concerned that Motallebi is only the first scapegoat in what might become a new government preoccupation. "This is not about Sina," says Pedram Moallemian, an Iranian blogger living in California. "The government has noticed this new area where free speech can flourish, and they want us to know that they're watching us. Sina's arrest is supposed to send a message."