(Befinner mig i London och saknar engelskt tangentbord)
I dagens The Times skriver Ben Mcintyre om den iranska blogosfaren och myndigheternas desperata forsok att stoppa densamma. I Mullahs versus the bloggers berattar Mcintyre att over tjugo bloggare arresterats med olika brottsrubricering. Det iranska mediaklimatet ar i ovrigt allt annat an fritt och flera tidningar har stangts ned och redaktorer fangslats pga sina asikter.
"The Iranian State has done its utmost to smother the nascent Iranian blogosphere. In 2003 the Government began to take direct action against bloggers — more than 20 have been arrested, on charges ranging from “morality violations” to insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. One blogger was sentenced to 14 years in prison for “spying and aiding foreign counter-revolutionaries”; in October, Omid Sheikhan was sentenced to a year’s jail and 124 lashes for a weblog featuring satirical political cartoons."
Mcintyre beskriver Iran som en potenciell bloggnation med tanke pa att 70% av landets befolkning ar under 30 och antalet manniskor med egna datorer ar relativt hogt. Det de iranska myndigheterna fruktar ar ett okontrollerat "Weblogistan" snarare an de politiska bloggarna.
"It is less the political content of the blogs that terrifies Iran’s Government than the mere existence of this space outside its control, where Iranians are free to say whatever they wish to one another. Here in Weblogistan they can tell jokes, flirt, mock their leaders and share music files, unencumbered by mullahs’ fiats or state decrees.
De iranska myndigheterna ar sa radda for vad en okontrollerad blogosfar kan stalla till med att man pa allvar diskuterat att stanga ute hela Iran fran Internet och pa det sattet skapa ett slags nationellt intranet.