Iran's hard-line regime cracks down on blogs

"I am very careful. Every blogger in Iran who writes in his/her name must be careful. I know the red lines and I never go beyond them," said Parastoo Dokouhaki, 25, who runs one of Iran's most popular blogs, www.parastood.com. "And these days, the red lines are getting tighter."

Dokouhaki doesn't directly write about politics. She sticks mostly to social issues, but in Iran, that is also a taboo subject.

"I write about the social consequences of government decisions and they don't like it, because they can't control it," said Dokouhaki.

Outright political bloggers have an even tougher time.

Hanif Mazroui was arrested in 1994 and charged with acting against the Islamic system through his writings. He was jailed for 66 days and then acquitted.

"It's normal for authorities to summon and threaten bloggers," said Mazroui. The government continued to harass him and three months ago, he was summoned once again by the authorities and told never to write about the nuclear issue. Soon after his release, he shut down his weblog.

"They kept pressuring me," he said.

Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian journalist and blogger, was 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.

He had been in jail for 60 days when he was sentenced to 14 years in jail. He appealed the decision and was released on bail. But though his sentence has been reduced to three years, he still faces charges of insulting the leader and writing propaganda.

Another, Mojtaba Saminejad, has been in prison since February 2005. He was first arrested in November 2004 for speaking out against the arrest of three colleagues. According to the Committee to Protect Bloggers, Saminejad's website was hacked into by people linked to the Iranian Hezbollah movement.

After his release, he relaunched his blog at a new address, which led to his second arrest in February 2005. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and then given an extra 10 months for inciting "immorality."

Despite the crackdown, most Iranian bloggers say the government is not interested in eliminating the blogging trend altogether.

Instead, they believe authorities understand its power and want to use it to further their own goals.

Farid Pouya, a Belgian-based Iranian blogger who writes at webgardesh.blogspot.com, notes the government has just launched a competition for the best four blogs. The subjects: the Islamic revolution and the Koran.

"The government has observed carefully and learned that blogs are important ... and they want to capitalize on that," she said. "They want to lead the movement, they want to control it."

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