the eyeranian

Sina Coverage

Christian Rocca has written about Sina in Italian daily newspaper IL FOGLIO. You can read the original Italian version here.

I used one of those free on-line translator sites to translate the page and although not very clear and flowing in language, the translated English version is posted in the "continued" portion of this post.

Also, two well known blogs BuzzMachine and Glen Reynolds' InstaPundit have linked to my blog and are following the story closely.

Friends of Sina are not going to let this topic go away. Let's keep the pressure on. Your help is needed.

.....

Source: http://www.wittgenstein.it/cr/bloggeriraniano.html

The ayatollah modernize themselves: now arrest the blogger

IL FOGLIO, 8 May 2003

New York. Now in Iran the ayatollah arrest also the blogger, the personal web the sites of curators that resemble more to diaries on line that to true and actual newspapers of opposition.

Sina Motallebi , of 30 years, was beaten in prison 20 of past April for the contents of its diary on line. Sina is a journalist and film critic. It wrote for a paper couple of newspapers , of politics for the reformist Ham Mihan and of culture for Hayat-and-No, both closed from the islamic censorship. So it is itself open its weblog, rooznegar. com , on which reviewed the film.

The last articles posted (word that in the jargon of the blogger means "published") little before to to be arrested is not completely of political nature, sfotticchiavano rather the incapability of the iranian presenters tv of to pronounce the names of the actors, and annotated the withdrawal of Michael Jordan, beyond that the problems to the toeeh of the figlioletto and an old one communicated of another journalist arrested with the accusation

The police has not immediately explained the motive of the stopping of Sina , but the judge talked about "contained of its site ", of "interviews with the foreign printing" and of "to have weakened the national safety across cultural activity".

The news were given from the wife of Sina , Farnaz Ghazizadeh, on its site and then from other iranian blogger that live abroad (hoder. com from Toronto and eyeranian. net from San Diego). There it is also a petition for the liberation of Sina (petitiononline.com/sina), taken again from the Bbc and that yesterday counted 3.500 signatures.

The point is that in Iran the mania of the blog is exploded, and the religious authority seem very worried. The stopping of Sina comes considered a warning towards the other iranian blogger. Internet became the half ideal one for a country that to 60 percent is constituted of boys under the 25 years.

The main merit is of Hossein Derakhshan, the author of hoder. com, which explained its compatriots how it is built a site and cos' is a blog. Now the iranian weblog I am beyond 10 thousand (but there is also who I count 50 thousand), an incredible number if be hung that the access to Internet is not easy like in West. The blogger I am very profitable, reunite themselves, collect money for the orfanotrofi, and also participated in the town elections of Tehran although had not some chance because of the abstention of mass in mark of protest towards the ayatollah and of the political false reformists.

The iranian weblog I am often anonymous and rarely politicians, but to the fundamentalists even more dangerous appaiono. A post, that is to say one written on the weblog of a like that girl restored from eyeranian. net is able to be devastating for the religious authority: "When he said me that its parents is not at home, I understood that that the right night would have been. He had bought grass and two pills of ecstasy, but I was too nervous to appreciate them. When we ended, I am not heard me obscene né guilty né. And I am asked myself for what motive there it is all this unrest".

Now the problem is another one. The wife of Sina is worried that the underground mobilization in favor of its I marry can have negative effects on its situation prison. Also the same Sina, in the sole communication that a week was agreed him after the stopping, expressed the doubt that to the trial the country can be used against of him.

Therefore, that to do? To pretend of nothing or to organize an international mobilization for its liberation. The iranian blogger I am divided. Masoud Behnoud, a journalist that the same experience of Sina lived, and perhaps also worst seen that was shut away for 50 days in a small dark cell, wrote on its weblog (from London) that simply including the worries and the fears of the wife of Sina, believes that its personal situation certainty will not be able to improve if it is put the silencer to the event.

Posted by Pedram at May 9, 2003 10:56 PM