Popular Iranian Blogger faces Death Penalty for Criticizing Government

Hossein Derakshan is called the father of Persian blogging by journalists. And a rightful title that is, as he’s the pioneer in popularizing the concept of blogging and podcasting in Iran for last 9 years now. But now, the man who advocated “free speech” and blogging is in jail facing possibility of death penalty for reasons that others like us around the world might find a little “unfair” and surprising.
Hossein started blogging in 2001, in the Persian language, called “Sardabir: Khodam” meaning “Editor: Myself” at Hoder.com. He also helped many other folks to learn blogging in the Persian language and popularized free speech via blogging. His blog was primarily political in nature and created controversies around many topics as all political blogs do. But the Iranian Government in its efforts towards Internet Censorship, blocked his blog in 2004.
Hossein’s problems began with his trip to Israel as a citizen journalist and Peace activist, which he says was to show people of Iran how Israel really is and how people live there. He boldly spoke against Iranian Government too, saying they were portraying Israel as an evil state, which was not the reality.
Image Courtesy – Vivian Salama
Excerpt from his blog regarding his Israel travel.

This might mean that I won’t be able to go back to Iran for a long time, since Iran doesn’t recognize Israel, has no diplomatic relations with it, and apparently considers traveling there illegal. Too bad, but I don’t care. Fortunately, I’m a citizen of Canada and I have the right to visit any country I want. I’m going to Israel as a citizen journalist and a peace activist. As a citizen journalist, I’m going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there. The Islamic Republic has long portrayed Israel as an evil state, with a consensual political agenda of killing every single man and woman who prays to Allah, including Iranians. I’m going to challenge that image. As a peace activist, I’m going to show the Israelis that the vast majority of Iranians do not identify with Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, despite what it looks like from the outside. I’m going to tell them how any kind of violent action against Iran would only harm the young people who are gradually reforming the system and how the radicals would benefit from such situation.

Hossein took many stands on controversial political issues since then and always remained in the limelight for his bold comments. He has published articles in the Washington Post, The Guardian, and other mainstream media where he repeated his bold stands and controversial comments. In 2007, his blog hosting account was terminated based on legal troubles, when Mr. Mehdi Khalaji, a visiting Iranian scholar at the Washington Institute filed a $2 million lawsuit against him against defamation.
On November 1, 2008, Hossein was arrested at his family home in Tehran, accused of spying for Israel and possibly “insulting religion”.
Fast forward to 2010, a Persian News Service reported that Hossein is being requested for death penalty by a panel of judges in the court.

Moral of the story ?

This is an important story to the blogging world which mostly have been known for free speech and productive criticism. The regional differences and laws creep in to the seemingly seamless, borderless world of online journalism which in my opinion is unfortunate. For those of you who thought you could write your heart out about sensitive issues, and selected blogging as the place for anonymity, its probably time to think again.
At the end of it all, I sincerely wish this incident doesn’t set a bad example to the world.