China's government is same as Iran's government: They are afraid of PEOPLEs opinions and this BLOG thing is a gret threat. Reuters writes in China moves towards “real name system” for blogs:
“A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardise and develop its blog industry,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Internet Society's secretary general, Huang Chengqing, as saying.
“We suggest, in a recent report submitted to the ministry, that a real name system be implemented in China's blog industry,” Huang said.
wow.. This reminds me my government;
“We have to develope, so there is no choice exept this limitaion”.
Recently Leila and I traveled to Netherlands ans spent 10 days in that beautiful country. We really enjoyed and learned. Thank you all guys ! I really liked the cultural diversity and acceptance of others (cultures and people). I also enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and museum like cities.
And there is one more reason to love Netherlands: RSF.org, Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006 :
Northern European countries once again come top of the Index, with no recorded censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands, which all share first place.
I know. I know that I've not seen other countries but I really liked this one ! If you are from other countries and jealous, invite me to your country so I'll write my opinion !
In Iran gathering and demonstrating is legal by the text of constiutional law But as government afraids of free opinions, police always attacks to INDEPNDENT movements and arrest people and claim: “you did not get the permission for your gathering!”.
Yesterday, some of our friends gathered in the Daneshjoo park - central tehran - to emphasis their “NO WAR” and “RIGHT OF GATHERING” demands. You have to consider that “NO WAR” motto is used instead of “DOWN TO ISRAEL, LONG LIVE HIZBOLLAH” which is a official motto.
About 100 people were participated and passengers took the booklets against WAR. The main mottos were:
- stop the war against humanity
- Bread, Peace, Freedom
- Telaviv workers ! Strike ! and the war machine will stop
- No WAR !
- Stop terror and violence
- I'm against Imperialism, Fundumentalism and Terror
Some people wore red t-shirts with the “bread, peace and freedom” on it, As you can guess from the RED colors and mottos, the gathering had finished by singing International and parading in the park.
There were risk of arrests and batons but I'm glad that the gathering finished in peace and calm. Maybe the Islamic regime did not understood the true meaning of it or maybe it prefered to accept the “right of gathering” when people are using it in an “anti USA” theme.
And the last word: There is a big diffrence between this one and official/governmental gatherings. In this one nobody is paid, nobidy gets profits, nobody passes the university entrance exams because of participating in this one, etc. It was a brave act from the brave people who tried to defend their own rights specially when talking about “freedom of gathering” and “I am against fundumentalism”
Manijeh Hekmat is one of the good Iranian movie directors. She have been directed the “Prison of women” and some other great movies and I like her works. For directing any movie - as any other thing - you have to get a license from government and Manijeh Hekmat did not got one for her new movie. What did she do ? Instead of saying “OK ! I'll do other another job” she said “OK ! I'll do another job, I'll sell cigarettes in the street in front of the Islamic guidance ministry from now on !”.
I think this a marvelous idea. I have to go there and chat with her and buy some cigarettes and start smoking
I don't know if you know about google trends or not. It is a service in which you can search for any term and it lists country / city names with most search requests for that term.
I've searched it and tested it for a while and found out some interesting information. I knew that a censored country with a restricted media and 30 years of Islamic government seems to have many problems. as you can see here, if you check Jeffier Lopez in google trends, Tehran is the first with about tree times more searches for this woman.
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Top cities (normalized) |
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Tehran, Iran
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Lima, Peru
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New Delhi, India
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Delhi, India
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Izmir, Turkey
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Zagreb, Hrvatska
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Ankara, Turkey
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Mumbai, India
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Istanbul, Turkey
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Chennai, India
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Next interesting issue for me was filtering and how people bypass it. In Iran most people google for PROXY and find new proxy servers and bypass filtering using them. I've searched for farsi equavalent for PROXY to see in which cities people are trying more to bypass filter and as I guessed, QOM (the holy city for iranian shi'i mullahs) was the among the firsts. It means that QOM which is considered to be Islamic Republics major support has the most searches on how to bypass filtering ! have a look your self:
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Top cities (normalized) |
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Kermanshah, Iran
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Qom, Iran
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Ahwaz, Iran
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Arak, Iran
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Babol, Iran
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Qazvin, Iran
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Rasht, Iran
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Shiraz, Iran
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Esfahan, Iran
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Karaj, Iran
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It's awfull ! Again I searched for some gender / sexual related terms. While searching for farsi equavalent for BREAST, QOM was seccond again ! and doubtless this holy city was among first cities searching for pornographic content.
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Top cities (normalized) |
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Yazd, Iran
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Qom, Iran
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Esfahan, Iran
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Ahwaz, Iran
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Shiraz, Iran
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Karaj, Iran
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Tabriz, Iran
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Tehran, Iran
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Mashhad, Iran
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And the fun part ? when government arrests people / webloggers, they give us full prints of our weblogs (wow.. what a waste of paper / amazon jungels) and asks us why we wrote about this and that. Funnier part is there is no one person which I can show these results and ask'em WHY AFTER 30 YEARS OF ISLAMIC GUIDENCE AND ISLAMIC RISTRICTED MEDIA, THIS IS OUR CASE?
OMG! Ramin Jahanbeglou is under arrest ! He is one of the best / only Iranian philosophers. I've been attended in his lectures twice just to see him. It is a shame that he is in prison right now and no body knows WHY !
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced outrage at the imprisonment of pro-reform intellectual and journalist Ramin Jahanbeglou, who was arrested at Tehran airport on 28 April 2006 after criticising the Iranian government in a series of interviews for Canadian, Spanish and French newspapers in recent weeks. He was transferred to Evin prison on 4 May.
“We call for the immediate release of Jahanbeglou, who is being held illegally,” the press freedom organisation said. “We fear that the Iranian authorities, after closing down around 20 newspapers and issuing summonses to dozens of journalists since the start of the year, are now planning a wave of arrests of journalists.”
Jahanbeglou was detained as he was about to catch a flight to attend an international conference on Iran. His arrest was kept secret until 3 May. It was only after reports were posted on websites and broadcast on foreign radio stations that Tehran deputy prosecutor Mahmoud Salarkia confirmed that Jahanbeglou was being held, without explaining why.
The 27 April issue of the French daily “Le Monde” carried comments by Jahanbeglou criticising the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government.
Jahanbeglou, who has a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris, heads the “Modern Thought” group at the Centre for Iranian Cultural Research in Iran. He used to contribute to several pro-reform newspapers such as “Gardonn” and “Kian” that were closed by the authorities, and he has written many books on democracy, secularism and non-violence.
He is also a contributor to several foreign news media including the BBC and the French magazines “Esprit” and “Etudes et Projets”.
Iran is the Middle East's biggest prison for journalists and bloggers, with a total of six persons currently held. President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are both on the Reporters Without Borders list of press freedom predators.
I'm Jadi, an Iranian blogger from inside Iran. I'm blocked in my own country so I've decided to write in English for outsiders (