A lot of news about Iran, its big brother policies, its anti-bahai stance etc.
How about spreding the butter evenly over the toast and giving other countries in the region the same attention.

You could start off with Bahrain, I am sure there lots to say there. *cough*

Agree.

I am shocked when some people irresponsibly, unwillingly or purposely pass a judgement on the IRI without seeing the IRI’s crimes on our people and its obvious illegitimacy.

Here, the media play a crucial role, we have to post materials to neutralise some IRI’s influential efforts in this site.

as long as people like Mullahs, clergies, muftis and so on are spending Iranian’s money to develop supporter (Islamic/fanatic) we will see lots of people who praise their dictatorship regime and their approach towards people.

The article criticised a little aspect of IRI’s censorship on the websites to play down the nature of the regime in general and particularly against the whole media in Iran. Many “outsider”, not from opposition because they were long ago abolished newspapers are shut down and some of their journalists are in prisons. Some of them are facing heavy charges for “being the enemy of Islam”.

In 5 Aug. (IPS) The wave of executions in the Islamic Republic of Iranian has now reached the Iranian media, as on 16 July 2007, two Kurdish journalists, Mr. Adnan Hassanpour and Mr. Abdolvahed (Hiva) Boutimar were sentenced to death by an Islamic tribunal in Marivan, a Kurdish city in the north-west Iran.

Death sentence for “profane” writers and journalists is reminiscent of Khomeini’s death fatwa on Anglo-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie more than a decade ago. The two Kurdish journalists are in fact the first Iranian journalists being accused of “Mohareb”.
Last year, another IRI’s senior cleric, Sheikh Fazel Lankarani, issued a death fatwa on an Azeri journalist, Rafiq Taqi, because of his “profane” article “humiliating Prophet Mohammad”.
The article by considering the IRI a “legitimate, democratic…regime” is an insult and slap in the face of millions of Iranian who suffer from the totalitarian IRI.

The Islamic regime is ruled by a non elected supreme leader, Velayet e faghih and some pre-selected “insider” Islamists who are selected by the Council of Guardian for a show-election for all key positions.

The constitution and judiciary are based on the archaic Sharia, Islamic laws, allowing stoning, amputation, lashing and any humiliated act of violence, international recognised illegal.

Furthermore the IRI is a clear misogynous regime, where its female apologists have no more right than the half of that of a man only if they are clad in Islamic hijab.

I wonder if the article can also go further to recognise , Nazi regime or Apartheid regime “democratic and legitimate” regime.

That site’s description of HD’s case was good enough. dont bother urself. you are doing a good job here

when I was a student in Isfahan University of Technology, I had accedd to broad-band internet; right now, I use dial-up connection, like most of the people in Iran. and the name of that ISP I use its services is Jahanonline.

to Esra’a:
persianjewishyouth was not blocked for me, as well as myspace. but orkut was blocked.

another point:
the simplest form of an anti-filter is a simple php file that everybody can put it in his/her own website, and then this anti-filter will provide access to all-over the web for you. the only thing you should pay attention to is that you should never make your anti-filter’s address public: as long as just you or some of your close friends use it, officials will never find it. I have that php file as well, and have made and anti-filter with it on my own website, though you cant find any link to its page on other pages of the site. this way, even some people create a simple website just to use it as an anti-filter, and it costs them about 20$ a year… um, nice!

if anybody is eager to have that file, email me: mo.memarian@gmail.com

And finally, can someone honestly explain why this message is posted as the front page on “Stop Censoring Us:

Sure, look who signed the page, the author is famous to praise the IRI regime. Saadati defines his blog cycle in Price of baseless accusations as:

At the start he criticized the Iranian regime; maybe he was trying to impose himself as a political activist. But the problem was that he does not understand politics.

In the middle of the Iranian presidential elections in 2005, he went back to Iran to lobby for the reformists. But he was allegedly stopped at the airport by the Iranian ministry of intelligence. The details of this incident is still sketchy. But since then, Hoder has played down the game: Upon his return from Iran he U-turned and started to praise the regime.

This was not a problem because many Iranians outside the country still favour the Iranian regime. Without any evidence, he started accusing people of espionage and cooperation with the U.S. and other Western countries to interrupt the Islamic Republic.

but hossein

I believe that Internet censorship is an internal problem and the only way to solve it should also come and develop from within. Taking such efforts beyond Iran and into the international scene will benefit the American politicians more than the Iranian internet users.

Also hossein in stop.censoring.us wrote:

I believe that Internet censorship is an internal problem and the only way to solve it should also come and develop from within. Taking such efforts beyond Iran and into the international scene will benefit the American politicians more than the Iranian internet users.

Obviously the author is still living in Westophobia.

You do an outstanding job of defining your quest for human rights. And as you so elegantly explain, the West certainly has no monopoly on human rights (in fact they can be the worst abusers). But every once in a while I want to remind your audience that not everybody living in the “West” supports our policies, myself included. Even in a democracy we don’t always get our own way. Sadly no system of government is perfect.

gary

What you, and maybe HD, are referring to are US-based organizations using these things as excuses to intervene, which is indeed very manipulative. I wholeheartedly agree with you and this is why we refuse sponsorship/affiliation with such groups.

I think it is very unfair and dangerous however if people continue associating all of us with the West merely because we chose to fight back against any form of corruption within this region, whether be it censorship or minority rights. You all know how most of us are against the US intervention in Iraq and how we would staunchly be against any form of further intervention within the Middle East, especially Iran. Just because we care about civil rights in this region and so-called “Western” values (they are universal, NOT Western) does not mean that we support Western or US intervention. Therefore I find what HD said slightly misleading.

I reply in this emotional manner because I have been called a traitor and a US-spy when I’ve never even been to the U.S or been directly associated with any of its organizations. I do not work for any American companies or people. I am an independent activist who many consider a traitor or an agent of the West simply because I stood up for what I think is right. Is that fair? It’s outrageous what we are being put through.

Part of me understands HD’s argument on “stop censoring us.” While most of us are dedicated to human rights, it is disturbing to see the reporting of abuses used as an excuse to attack a nation. There needs to some balance between attention to abuses and attention to how that reporting is being used to justify calls to war.

gary

I am 100% sure that YouTube, Orkut, myspace and so many other social networks and news sites are censored and almost any blog that has anything against IRI and most dating sites.

Facebook is partially censored through some ISPs you can access but some others no. I am not sure about Flickr and the NYTimes.

I’ll edit the post accordingly.

Bahrain had Google Earth blocked, but I can access it fine now. I think it was lifted due to the international backlash.

The only thing I wanted to say is that: yes, Youtube (or other famous sites you mentioned) may be blocked by some ISPs, but they are not officially blocked.

(Esther’s blog is blocked officially)