Posted by Mary Madigan
From the Committee to Protect Bloggers
Today is Free Mojtaba and Arash Day in honor of the two Iranian bloggers currently incarcerated by the Iranian government.
Here is what you can do. With additional contact information.
Let’s make a difference today. Freedom of speech is not a partisan issue, not an issue of culture or ethnicity, it is a bloggers’ issue and a human issue.
More about the dangers of blogging in Iran.
[Links thanks to Kesher Talk]
UPDATE – Via Buzzmachine: This issue is getting attention.
An online protest Tuesday of Iran’s crackdown against bloggers made an impact–even on Iranian officials.
So says a leader of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, the group that organized the effort to decry the jailings of Iranian bloggers Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad.
Reuters on Tuesday reported that Sigarchi was jailed for 14 years on charges ranging from espionage to insulting the country’s leaders, a move probably linked in part to the timing of the protest, said Curt Hopkins, the committee’s director. “I think there’s got to be some connection,” Hopkins said.
A message left with the Iranian mission to the United Nations was not immediately returned…
…According to Reuters, Sigarchi is a newspaper editor and blogger who was arrested last month. A member of the Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran told Reuters that the charges against him are political and journalistic.
According to the group Reporters Without Borders, Sigarchi was arrested for keeping a banned blog called Panhjareh Eltehab (The Window of Anxiety), in which he reported the arrests of cyber-journalists and bloggers….
…Blogging has emerged in the past year or so as a powerful tool to make a difference in society. Hopkins said his group’s next step may go beyond simply raising awareness about free-speech issues. The organization may seek to set up special server computers that would make it harder for a government to crack down on those speaking through blogs.
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