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THE WEB AND IRAN | Digital DialogueAttempting to Silence Iran’s ‘Weblogistan’‘Iran’s filtering and blocking regime has been described by various experts assecond only to China’s.’BY MOHAMED ABDEL DAYEMHardly a week goes by withoutIran being featured prominentlyin the news. Usually thenews is about the country’s PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad’s inflammatoryrhetoric or its nascent nuclearprogram. But Iran is not the monolithicentity it is often portrayed to be inWestern, and especially U.S., media.While the Iranian governmentretains a monopoly on all televisionand radio broadcasting, the countrycontinues to have an independent,though reduced in size and severelybattered, print media. Although manyindependent and reformist newspaperswere launched during the years ofthe Khatami presidency (1997-2005),hardliners in Iran have shut downmore than 100 of those publicationsand jailed dozens of journalists inthe process.It is perhaps no surprise then thatduring those years Iranians began takingto the Internet in droves. Between20 and 25 million Iranians have regulardigital access, giving the countrythe highest Internet penetration ratein the region. According to researchby the Berkman Center for Internet& Society, the Iranian blogospherecurrently boasts some 60,000 regularlyupdated blogs of virtually everypolitical stripe. Others estimate thatthe number is closer to 100,000. EvenIran’s president and supreme leadermaintain blogs. “Weblogistan,” asIranians casually refer to the teemingand diverse world of Farsi blogging,Blogging in IranSeptember 2001—First Iranian blogappears on the Internet.November 2001—Blogger HosseinDerakhshan develops a step-by-stepguide to blogging in Farsi.April 2003—Journalist Sina Motalebibecomes first Iranian blogger to beimprisoned. After more than threeweeks in solitary confinement, Motalebiwas released on bail. By year’send he sought asylum in Europe.August-November 2004—Iranian authoritiesdetain upward of 20 bloggersand online journalists. After beingreleased, many of the imprisonedbloggers provided detailed accountsof mistreatment and torture while incustody.January 2005—Government ordersInternet service providers to filter anumber of the most popular Persianblog-hosting platforms.August 2006—President MahmoudAhmadinejad launches a personalblog.October 2006—Farsi becomes one ofthe 10 most used blogging languages,according to blog indexing serviceTechnorati.July 2008—Draft law being discussedin parliament adds the creation of Websites and blogs that promote “corruption,prostitution and apostasy” to alist of criminal offenses punishable bythe death sentence.November 2008—Hossein Derakhshanis detained, allegedly in connectionwith comments he made about religiousfigures. No official charges have beenfiled against the blogger. Authoritiesdenied holding Derakhshan untilDecember 30, 2008.February 2009—Bloggers and onlinewriters Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, OmidMemarian, Javad Gholamtamimi, andShahram Rafizadeh, all of whom weremistreated while in custody in 2004,are sentenced to multiyear prisonterms, flogging and monetary fines.This happens in spite of a pledgeby the chief of Iran’s judiciary thattheir abuse would be investigated andpunished.March 2009—Blogger OmidrezaMirsayafi, who was sentenced to a30-month prison sentence in December2008 for insulting religious andpolitical figures, dies in prison undersuspicious circumstances. He had justbegun serving his sentence a monthearlier. 42 Nieman Reports | Summer 2009