IRAN: Tehran steps up arrests of journalists

[democratic]

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=16567

Taipei Times
Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Iran has continued its crackdown on journalists, with two arrests in the past week, and has moved against pro-democracy Web sites, blocking hundreds of sites in recent months and making several arrests.

Mahboubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, the editor of the magazine Farzaneh and an advocate of expanded rights for women, was arrested Nov. 1 after she returned from London, where she had attended the European Social Forum.

The government has blocked hundreds of political sites and Web logs. Three major pro-democracy Web sites that support President Mohammad Khatami were blocked in August. And a university in Orumieh shut down its Internet lab, contending that students had repeatedly browsed on indecent Web sites.

The crackdown suggests that hard-liners are determined to curtail freedom in cyberspace. Many rights advocates had turned to the Internet after the judiciary shut down pro-democracy newspapers and journals in recent years.

The number of Internet users in Iran has soared in the past four years, to 4.8 million from 250,000. As many as 100,000 Web logs operate, some of which are political.

[StClone]

1. Sounds like things are brewing over there

General Norman Schartzkoff says that if Iran goes nuclear things will get ugly fast as the USA has nothing much in reserve to attack with except Nukes and non-nuke bombs.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Unreal.

Iran was starting to come around during Clinton's administration. Now, the same students that were giving the finger to the hardline clerics are protesting in the streets against the US. (How the hell did anyone rationalize voting for the Smirk?)