Blogging in Iran
Blogging in Iran operates under special circumstances because the government restricts certain views. Blogs in general tend to be unregulated compared to other forms of expression in Iranian society. This characteristic can account for the huge popularity of blogs especially among Iranian youths. As of October 2005, there are estimated to be about 700,000 Iranian blogs (out of an estimated total of 100 million worldwide, of which about 40,000-110,000 are active, mostly written in Persian, the Iranian language).
There are also many weblogs written by Iranians in English and other languages. Most of them, though, belong to expatriates who live in North America, Europe, Japan, etc. Iran is the third-largest country of bloggers in the world after the United States and China.[1][2][3] With more than 700,000 Persian blogs, mostly based in Iran, the Persian language is ranked as the second-most-popular language in the entire blogosphere.[4][5]
Timeline
2001
- 7 September - The first Persian blog is published by Salman Jariri, using manual coding.[6]
- 25 September - The blog using manual coding is published.
- 5 November - Instructions on "How to make a blog in Persian" using Blogger's free service is published, in response to readers' requests.
2002
- 2 June - Cappuccino magazine is launched.
- 13 June - PersianBlog.ir, the first free blog service in Persian, is launched by Ata Khalighi Sigaroudi,[7] amongst others.
- 10 November - BlogSky.com, the second free blog service in Persian, is launched.
2003
- 20 April - Sina Motallebi, journalist and blogger is arrested.[8]
- 26 September - Cafe Blog opens in northern Tehran.
- 24 November - Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, then Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, starts Webnevesht, the first blog by a member of the Iranian cabinet.[9]
2004
- 16 January - Protesting MPs on sit-in start a weblog.
- 6 June - Persian Blogging festival starts.
- November - Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad arrested for writing about the arrests of three other bloggers.[10]
2005
- 5 January - Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's Chief prosecutor, ordered major ISPs to filter PersianBlog and other blogging service websites.
- 27 January/12 February - Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad briefly released, then rearrested
- October Blog Herald estimate: 700,000 Iranian blogs, of which about 10% are active
- 11 October - Blogging courses starts in the holy city of Qom, the traditional home of Iran's religious establishment. They are run by the newly-established office of religious weblog expansion.[11]
2006
- Persian language was listed by Technorati among 10 most common languages among bloggers.[12]
- 14 August - President Ahmadinejad starts his multilingual blog with one long entry.[13]
- 13 September - Mojtaba Saminejad is released from prison, after serving term.
- December: Mehrnoush Najafi Ragheb won city council election in Hamedan.
- 4 December: Masoumeh Ebtekar, the first female vice president of Iran starts her blog in Persian.
2007
- 24 December: Almost a year after starting her blog in Persian, Massoumeh Ebtekar starts her blog in English, under the title "Persian Paradox".
2008
- 28 January - Parsweblog.com, the first free blog service based on wordpress in Persian, is launched by Mohammad hasan abbasi
- July 5: Yaghoob Mehrnehad (Mirnehad) an Iranian blogger journalist was executed.[14][15]
- 1 November: Hossein Derakhshan, credited with starting the blogging revolution in Iran[16] and frequently called "the father of Persian blogs"[17] was arrested at his family home in Tehran, not long after arriving there.[18][19][20] He was allowed four calls to his family, each lasting about one minute, during November.[18] Amnesty International suggested that he was likely to face charges of "insulting religion", but he had not yet been charged as of mid-December.[18]
- November: Revolutionary Guards announced its plan to launch 10000 blogs.
2009
- January 1, 2009: Iranian's own video sharing site "IranianYouTube.com" was created
2010
- July 24: Fariborz Shamshiri, Iranian atheist blogger has been targeted with death threats from radical Muslims.[24]
- October 8: Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki, often described as 'genius' blogger, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.[26] According to Reporters Without Borders, he was alleged to have written and used software to combat filtering and to host and support websites and blogs that defend human rights.[27]
Directories
Related books
- We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs by Nasrin Alavi (Soft Skull Press /November 28, 2005) ISBN 1-933368-05-5
- We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gilmor (O'Reilly, 2004) ISBN 0-596-00733-7
Academic papers
- Rahimi, Babak (September 2003). Cyberdissent: The Internet in Revolutionary Iran. Middle East Review of International Affairs, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya , 7(3).
- Doostdar, Alireza (Dec. 2004). "The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging": On Language, Culture, and Power in Persian Weblogestan. American Anthropologist 106(4).
- Jensen, Peder Are Nøstvold (Sep. 2004). A Case Study of Iranian English Language Weblogs, inside and outside of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Farrell, Henry and Drezner, Daniel W. (Aug. 2004). The Power and Politics of Blogs.
- Simmons, Erin A. (Jun. 2005). The Impact of the Weblog: A Case Study of The United States and Iran.
- Alexanian, Janet A. (Nov. 2006). Publicly Intimate Online: Iranian Web Logs in Southern California. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Duke University Press 26(1)
- Halevi, Jordan. (March 2006). The Iranian Weblog Research Project: Survey Results.
- Hendelman-Baavur, Liora (June 2007). "Promises and Perils of Weblogistan: Online Personal Journals and the Islamic Republic of Iran". The Middle East Review of International Affairs, 11(2).
- PetrossianL, Celine (2006). Liberating the Silenced: Iranian Bloggers in the Diaspora, California State University, Northridge.
- Sreberny, Annabelle (2007). 'Becoming Intellectual: The Blogestan and Public Political Space in the Islamic Republic', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol.34, No. 3, pp. 267–286
- Kelly, John and Bruce Etling (April 2008). Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere.
- Nafisi, Arman (June 2008). "Blogging Outside Iran: A Tool for Internal Democratic Change?". Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington.
- IHRDC (May 2009). Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Iran's Response to the Internet.
See also
References
- ^ "Iranian hackers strike China". Financial Post. 2010-01-13. http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/Story.html?id=2434707. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ "Hackers Take Iran's Civil War Online". The Media Line. 2010-01-25. http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=27839. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ "Hackers Take Iran's Civil War Online". The Jerusalem Post / The Media Line. 2010-06-02. http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=167963. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ^ "The revolution will be blogged". Salon. 2006-03-06. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/06/iranian_bloggers/. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ "The revolt in Iran continues". Herald Sun. 2009-06-18. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_revolt_in_iran_continues. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ "The land of Goder and Ferfer, blogging with a Persian accent". DW-World. 2009-12-07. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4973862,00.html. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Three journalists transferred to notorious "special wing" of Evin prison; exiled journalist's father arrested". International Freedom of Expression Exchange. 2004-09-14. http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/61261. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ Fathi, Nazila (2007-12-11). "From Iran’s Fiery Leader, a Slightly Tamer Blog". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/world/asia/11blog.html?em&ex=1197522000&en=304e78e9e511aa10&ei=5087%0A. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ "Blogger Mojtaba Saminejad freed". International Freedom of Expression Exchange. 2005-01-31. http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11978. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ Tait, Robert (2006-10-11). "Iran's clerics caught up in blogging craze". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1892562,00.html. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
- ^ BBC Persian | وبلاگ بی بی سی فارسی | رشد وبلاگ نويسی در دنيا
- ^ "Iran's president launches weblog". BBC News. 2006-08-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4790005.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
- ^ "World Jewish Diplomatic Corps - Iran - UPR Submission to the Office of the High Commissioner". World Jewish Congress. 2010-02-01. p. 9. http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/futgen/wjdc/World%20Jewish%20Congress%20-%20Iran%20UPR%20Attachment.pdf.
- ^ Shamshiri, Fariborz (2008-08-07). "First executed Iranian blogger: Yaghoob Mehrnehad". Rotten Gods. http://www.rottengods.com/2008/08/yaghoob-mehrnehad-first-executed.html.
- ^ Perrone, Jane (2003-12-18). "Weblog heaven". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2003/dec/18/weblogs. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
- ^ Heller, Z.P. (2005-02-22). http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21316/. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ a b c "Document - Iran: Incommunicado detention/ fear of torture or other ill-treatment/ possible prisoner of conscience: Hossein Derakhshan (m)". Amnesty International. 2009-12-15. Archived from the original on 2009-04-20. http://www.webcitation.org/5gA5oGJ6C. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
- ^ Gharbia, Sami Ben. "Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan "arrested" In Tehran". Global Voices Online. http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/11/18/iranian-blogger-hossein-derakhshan-arrested-in-tehran/. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
- ^ Theodoulou, Michael (2008-11-20). "Iranian 'Blogfather' Hossein Derakhshan is arrested on charge of spying for Israel". London: The Times. Archived from the original on 2009-04-19. http://www.webcitation.org/5g9ySxomE. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ "The judiciary system confirmed the arrest of Hossein Derakhshan" (in Persian). BBC Persian. 30 December 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2008/12/081230_ag_jb_derakhshan.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
- ^ "Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger Dies in Prison". GlobalVoices. http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/03/19/omid-reza-mir-sayafi-iranian-blogger-dies-in-prison/. Retrieved 2009-04-29.
- ^ Fathi, Nazila (2009-04-19). "Iranian President Asks Court to Reconsider Spy Case". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
- ^ Lyons, Andrew Ford (2010-07-24). "Iranian atheist blogger receives threats". Committee to Protect Bloggers. http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2010/07/24/iranian-atheist-blogger-receives-threats/.
- ^ "Canadian-Iranian blogger sentenced to 19 years in prison". The Globe and Mail. 28 September 2010. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/canadian-iranian-blogger-sentenced-to-19-years-in-prison/article1729730/. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
- ^ "'Genius' Blogger Sentenced To 15 Years". Radio Free Europe. October 08, 2010. http://www.rferl.org/content/Genius_Blogger_Sentenced_To_15_Years/2184616.html.
- ^ "One blogger freed on bail, another blogger denied parole". Reporters Without Borders. November 15, 2010. http://en.rsf.org/iran-persecution-of-bloggers-continues-15-10-2010,38549.html.
External links