This post serves no other purpose whatsoever, except for clearing up Google Cache. No World Domination for today.

p.s. This blog had been recently hacked.

More in Persian Kamangir

Twenty one years have passed since Ayatollah Khomeini issued the infamous Fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his writings. The Fatwa was in effect suspended ten years later by the reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

Maybe it is actually a good thing that we forget things. Otherwise, we, Iranians, should have been actively annihilating Macedonia all over for the past two thousand years for what they did to Persepolis. Yet, fundamentalists do not seem to like it when it comes to forgetting things.

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

Moussavi and Karoubi recently published a one-hour-long video of their first “Cyber Press Conference” on Youtube. At the end of the video the producers appreciate what they call “helps from anonymous friends of the Green Movement in the state-run broadcasting body”. I interpret this as evidence that people from the inner circles of the Iranian political system are gambling on the end of the regime, and this is text-book example of what the advocates of the non-violent movement have been theorizing for long, i.e. the possibility of finding converts in a political regime and to have the system tremble without shooting a bullet.

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

An MP recently suggested that if everyone in the political system of Iran adheres to the Supreme Leader, then there would be complete unity. Well, you can replace “the Supreme Leader” to virtually anything in that sentence and the same assertion would still be correct. Take this, for example; if the whole political system writes a list of all the decisions to be made on any particular day and then someone, anyone, looks them up in Google and collects a list of semi-random answers which are then taken to heart by everyone, then we will have “complete unity”. But is “complete unity” something a political system would be looking for and benefit from?

On a similar note, a banner in Tehran reads “cover yourself up and not get harassed by men”. That’s another completely correct assertion which misses the point entirely.

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

The BP oil spill will give the industry more incentive to consider safety precautions more carefully and the world in large another reason to take alternative energies more seriously. Is Ahmadinejad Iran’s “political spill”?

Maybe we needed Ahmadinejad to occupy the office and make the future generations alert the next time someone like him has their names on the ballot. Of course that is assuming that there is going to be a future. The same goes for the BP spill. Does anyone suggest that everything can be returned to how things were before the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

The similarities of Mohammad Rigi, the 14-year-old suicide-bomber of the Zahedan terrorist attack, and Hossein Fahmideh, the iconic child-hero of the Iran-Iraq war, are striking. Can we dismiss Rigi as a brain-washed terrorist but praise Fahmideh as a hero? What is heroism and who defines is? Aren’t these two kids both victims of two different violence-seeking political systems?

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

The state-run Fars News published a piece in Persian about Concepcion Picciotto and how she has protested in front of the White House for 28 years. The main question is, is this supposed to be a criticism of the “Imperialist Evil” or an acknowledgment of American democracy?

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

We, especially here in the Persian blogosphere, take it for granted that online social networks are good vehicles for engaging a society in mutual and expansive discussion. The experience of being a member of the Persian subsets of the most significant social networks, including Facebook and Friend Feed, however, paints a grim picture. The fact is, these networks are partitioned into other-hating islands inside which members bash the “others”.

Social networks are good at dismantling the grip of state ideology. But are they also good for developing an environment in which citizens tolerate and cooperate despite differences?

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt

There is significant interest in a concept generally known as the Postcolonial discourse in the Persian blogosphere. The sympathizers of this mindset are active in different social networks such as Facebook and Friendfeed. I believe this discourse is fueled by laziness and the fact that it is easy to nag and put down western liberalism and all its achievements than to produce alternative content.

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt?

I recently attended the Cyber Dissidents Conference at the Bush Institute in Dallas. A wrap up of the conference can be seen in this video from Ideas in Action.

(Direct Link to Video)

While the last post on this blog dates back to December last year, I have never been this active in my five plus years of blogging. The Persian Kamangir was recently nominated for the best Persian blog by DW-World and I have had closer contact with the Persian media organizations outside Iran. To put it shortly, blogging for the Iranians needs to be done in the language they use, and that’s exactly what I am doing. As of today, Kamangir’s feed has over 6,000 feed subscribers, according to Google’s Feed Burner.

Follow my Persian blog at persian.kamangir.net (feed). You can also use Google Translate, which suspiciously manages to produce some form of poetry out of my mostly social-oriented posts.

This is the title of an article I wrote for DW-World about the Persian Blogosphere. Read the article in English here and in Persian here.

I am in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. My friend Omid Habibinia and I just had a seminar on the role of the new media in post-election events in Iran (The Revolution will be twittered – IRAN and the Internet). Omid discussed the process of transferring some of the videos, which later became popular on the Internet, out of Iran. I asserted that I am a fan of blogging but I want to take the role of the cynic and talk about the pitfalls of blogging, using examples from what did happen in the past six months in the Persian blogosphere.

Here are my slides. The title of the presentation was “Blog.Persian, The Empty Half”. Any comment or suggestion is absolutely welcome. Take the PDF file from here (200KB).

 Blog.Persian, The Empty Half: Download

It is official: this blog had been abandoned for the past many months, but things will not stay that way. I promise.

For the record, I will be in CPH:DOX next week.

That’s all for now.

Fars News has published the results of a poll of the Iranians’ opinions on a number of issues, including the controversial presidential elections. The pool is done by “World Public Opinion“* and seems to indicate that over 80% of the Iranians consider Ahmadinejad the legitimate president of Iran.

Review of the detailed report on the poll (PDF) shows that there a number of severe concerns concerning the quality of the results. Among these issues are,

• A total of 1,003 interviews were completed; the interview refusal rate was 52 percent.
• …one in four respondents refused to answer the question about who they voted for in the presidential election…
• …Asked how they would vote if the election were held again, half say they would vote for Ahmadinejad….

* The Wikipedia page for “World Public Opinion” states,

This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view. For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic

Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events

1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people’s legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution which emphasizes “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.”

2) We consider the violations in the presidential elections, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.

3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.

A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers

July 26, 2009

The news about Michael Jackson’s cardiac arrest was especially important in the Persian blogosphere. The King of Pop may not seem like a good companion for the videos of death and destruction which pour out of Iran everyday, but as an Iranian user of Twitter sarcastically put,

Manouchehr Mottaki [the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs] published an official letter of acknowledgment to thank Michael Jackson for his superbly timely death.

Another Persian message on Twitter suggests,

It is really possible that the Iranian regime murdered Michael Jackson to distract the focus from Iran.

With the regime closing in on the population, including breaking into houses and shooting live ammunition in the streets, a lot of us are worried that Ahmadinejad might just find the death of Michael Jakson the blessing he has been looking for since the suspicious results of the Iranian Presidential Election were published.

And at last all the technical issues have been resolved.

Kamangir is now hosted on Media Temple. Kamangir being the blog of course in the previous sentence. Kamangir is preparing for his Ph.D. defense. This one being me.

And about Iran, I am petrified. I would have never anticipated them resort to violence to this extent. All I find myself capable of is to ask people to watch their back and to not get engaged in anything dangerous.

We’ll have more to talk about. And by that I hope there will be some good outcome after the bloodshed.

After Bluehost suspended a number of Persian blogs (see: “Persian blogs on Bluehost will be going down”), I wrote this short article for Gozaar. The article jut got published:

We Need to Talk!

On the Suspension of Persian Blogs by the Hosting Company Bluehost

Seinfeld’s George Costanza once said “we need to talk” is “the worst four words in the English language.” Some of the people who comment on our Persian blogs—though not particularly fond of the “perverted” Western culture—do share the same viewpoint with Mr. Costanza.

Omid Reza Mir Sayafi was not the typical blogger whom you would think they would “take care of” in Evin. And yet they did. He was pushed to the verge of depression and according to some reports he committed suicide and passed away, when not given medical care by the authorities. Just one other dead body in “Iran’s path towards freedom”. Or maybe not?

We have had enough dead people and enough lives have been destroyed behind the thick walls of Evin. Now, we have two problems. One, we, Iranians, are martyr-lovers. At the beginning of every city and village they put up a “Welcome to Such” sign and then they add “The City of Martyrs” or “The Martyr-Raising City of Such”. The Islamic Republic indeed loves martyrs, but we do too. We love sacrifices. What these sacrifices are for, and if the act of tunneling the energy of the Iranian youth into becoming activists is going to exactly do what is what I do not understand. The second problem is that the “others” like “Iranian martyrs in the war against tyranny”.

Enough people! We, the Iranian youth, need to read books and watch documentaries and talk. We need to talk. We need to do it for many many years. There are a lot of Ahmadinejads amongst us and no blood would wash that away. We need to think and talk.

No more martyrs!

Related:

• Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger Dies in Prison
• Action Alert: Day of Solidarity with Persecuted Bloggers

Just a quick note on President Obama’s message regarding Nowruz. And this is from an Iranian point of view, not an American one. If you want to make the Iranian regime party, yell at them, if you want them to suffer, pat them and say nice things to them. The Islamic Republic likes the “Great Satan” to be really satanic.

Thank you President Obama. You made my day.

(direct link to the video)

 

 Listen to the Post [3:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the English translation of a post by the Persian blogger “1 Fathi”. This is an important development which has caused a lot of discussions and worries in the Persian blogosphere.

Persian blogs on Bluehost will be going down

There are certain events which happen at the backstage of the blogosphere, not where the readers of a blog would directly notice, but yet can have a serious impact on the performance of any blogger. The issues regarding hosting services are among these.

Since last week, Blue Host, the hosting service which is used for this very blog [and Kamangir as well], and the number one recommendation for WordPress hosting by WordPress itself, has adopted a policy of suspending its Iranian users. In some cases the bloggers have been given a short notice in order to back up their data and leave. This is despite Bluehost’s good reputation in the blogosphere.

The matter of fact is that many of these bloggers, including Arash Kamangir who blogs at kamangir.net, have no connection to the Iranian administration and have had to take use of a foreign hosting service in order to freely express their opinions.

The important factor is that Bluehost is not committing any illegal action. What is being done is exactly what article 13 in Bluehost Terms of Service mandates. The article does explicitly mention Iran among the sanctioned countries,

Sanctioned Countries presently include, among others, Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe…Each Sanctioned Country, all governmental, commercial, or other entities located therein, and all individuals located in any Sanctioned Country are hereby prohibited from registering or signing up with, subscribing to, or using any service of BlueHost.Com.

Therefore, we respectfully accept Bluehost’s right for implementing its Terms of Service. We want Bluehost to be safe and secure and will not commit any action which would undermine that. However, according to the current practice in every country*, giving service to individuals and organizations which act in conflict with the official policies of the administration is illegal. This will result in the Iranian opposition bloggers having no way to go and to be forced to shut down. The actions of Bluehost, therefore, will put a burden on these bloggers and will add to the pressure currently maintained by the Iranian administration on the opposition bloggers.

The matter of fact is, with Bluehost leading, other hosting services will follow very soon.

We respectfully acknowledge the rights of Bluehost and do thank their administration for their high level of service. We do hope that Bluehost drops its policy and does not disrupt the current level of discussion on Bluehost-powered blogs.

The Persian Bloggers who use Bluehost are dispersed all over the world and produce content for people from Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other countries. The action taken by Bluehost, while entirely legal, will harm the Persian blogosphere.

At the end, 1 Fathi hopes he does not have to shut down his blog.

We need help.

* “Some countries” might have been a better choice.

The Iranian community on friendfeed.com, which by the way is a 2000+ strong group, is pushing for a change of logo for the Nowruz, the Persian/Iranian new year. Google already recognizes Nowruz and exhibits a custom logo on the day.

The above logo has been designed by the Iranian user Pedram, the one below by Nimaa. Follow the discussion here.

Radio Zamaneh mentions local reports [Persian] stating that there have been attempts to demolish Khavaran Cemetery. Believed by the family members of the victims of the political cleansing of the 1988 to be where their loved ones are buried, the 30m by 60m cemetery in southern east of Tehran has been the scene of protests in recent years. There are no gravestones or any other signs in the yard, except for a few put in place by people who claim to have received information regarding the burial places of their executed loved ones.

There is now a call to action to demand Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the UN, to use all his capacity to stop the Iranian regime from destroying this piece of land, one of the few signs of a brutal past which has never been forgotten.

To: InfoDesk@ohchr.org

Your Excellency Ms. Navanethem Pillay High Commissioner of Human Rights at the UN

With deep disbelief and disdain we have become aware that the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have undertaken the destruction of Khavaran Cemetery, the only known site of mass and individual graves of the victims of the Great Massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 and other non- Moslem dissidents executed in Iran through out the Seventies.

I beg your honor to urgently take action demanding the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately stop this barbaric operation.

The destruction of Khavaran is tantamount to the eradication of an important material evidence of a historic crime.

Respectfully,

More about Khavaran Cemetery in BBC Persian, Wikipedia

I think one of the observations made as a result of the recent round of fights in Gaza is that, aside from all the moral and humanitarian concerns, bombing people does not necessarily yield any solution (Larger PDF at the bottom of the post).

Source – Through Antony

Persian Post – What is an Excerpt?

 PDF: Download