The Associated Press carries a report on the state of the Iranian blogosphere, covered in Forbes and other mainstream media outlets today. The censorship carried out there, it reports, has become worse, though it remains in second place to Red China.
   An Iranian Canadian blogger was asked to sign an apology when he went to Iran for his blog writings—and he was one of the lucky ones. One that AP mentions is in jail with a three-year sentence (reduced from 14), ‘arrested and charged with insulting the country's leader, collaborating with the enemy, writing propaganda against the Islamic state and encouraging people to jeopardize national security.’ Arash Sigarchi still faces additional charges of ‘insulting the leader and writing propaganda,’ for which he might get more jail time.
   Yet the majority of Iranian bloggers aren’t even political. In fact, they are just like us:

The most common issues are cultural, social and sexual. Blogs also are a good place to chat in a society where young men and women cannot openly date. There are blogs that discuss women’s issues, and ones that deal with art and photography.

   The best thing we can do is to show our support for our Iranian virtual neighbours and pay them a visit. In case some day, there are no more Iranian blogs to read, except for those that the government has controlled.

Del.icio.us tags: Iran | bloggers | blogosphere | censorship Posted by Jack Yan, 22:39  permalink

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