Iran Net censorship
p2p news / p2pnet: "On his last visit to Iran, Canadian-based blogger Hossein Derakhshan was detained and interrogated, then forced to sign a letter of apology for his blog writings before being allowed to leave the country," says the Associated Press, going on:
"Compared to others, Mr. Derakhshan is lucky. Dozens of Iranian bloggers have faced harassment by the government, been arrested for voicing opposing views, and fled the country in fear of prosecution over the past two years.
"In the conservative Islamic Republic, where the government has vast control over newspapers and the airwaves, weblogs are one of the last bastions of free expression, where people can speak openly about everything from sex to the nuclear controversy."
Experts estimate there are between 70,000 and 100,000 active weblogs in Iran, most of which are in Farsi, with a few in English, says the story.
And according to Curt Hopkins, director of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, the Iranian Net censorship is second only to China’s.
Moreover, "It also is one of a growing number of Mideast countries that rely on U.S. commercial software to do the filtering, according to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet Initiative," says AP.
"The software that Iran uses blocks both internationally hosted sites in English and local sites in Farsi, the study found. The filtering process is backed by laws that force individuals who subscribe to Internet service providers to sign a promise not to access non-Islamic sites. The same laws also force the providers to install filtering mechanisms."
And it’s getting worse, says Derakhshan.
In January, 13 Iranian deputies wrote to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad protesting against censorship and Reporters Without Borders includes it on its Enemies of the Net list, saying, "The information ministry boasts that it currently blocks access to hundreds of thousands of websites, especially those dealing in any way with sex but also those providing any kind of independent news. A score of bloggers were thrown in prison between autumn 2004 and summer 2005."
Also See:
Associated Press – Iran cracks down on bloggers, March 29, 2006
Iranian deputies – Iran news sites blocked, January 3, 2006
hundreds of thousands – 15 Enemies of the Net, November 18, 2005
