Yesterday, Hoder's father wrote a letter to Iran's judiciary to appeal for his son's release. That letter was published on the website of Salaam, a reformist newspaper from Iran. (both items via Cyrus Farivar).
By subjecting nationalist toad Nick Griffin to the Two-Minute Hate, the U.K.'s media establishment turns a fool into a victim. His dismal performance on the BBC's Question Time would have been satisfying were it not for the hand-wringing hostility that turned it into a circus. Coming next to Britai... More.
Image by zrim via Flickr When I got a bag of chile peppers in our CSA delivery last week, I had a really hard time trying to figure out how to cook them. I tried putting them in pasta, but that turned out numbingly spicy. And then I remembered that chile peppers = togarashi in Japanese, and that t... More.
Fershteh Ghazi (@iranbaan) tweets that Hamed Derakhshan, brother of jailed Iranian blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan, just said on @bbcpersian his brother has been held in solitary confinement for 10 months. Hoder was first arrested on November 1, 2008. Yesterday, Hoder's father wrote a letter to I... More.
This 1962 high-school textbook, "When You Marry," is a long, mind-bendingly awful manual for marriage, including sticking to traditional gender roles, staying away from race-mixing, resisting communism and saving yourself for your wedding night. Love, 1962 American High School Style (via Makin... More.
The talented UC Berkeley science grad students who created the wonderful and award-winning Nano Song earlier this year have followed up with the delightful Safety Song about lab safety. For more about these lively lyricists, check out The Sounds of Science. Previously:Nano Song - Boing Boing ... More.
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No, no, no. Have you forgotten? The Iranian government is our friend now. Therefore, this blogger must have deserved what he got.
Wow, this is sad. Iran sucks!
Iran's government sucks, actually.
The citizens of Iran are no different from citizens of the UK, US, Australia, China, Russia, Canada, or anywhere else. Their government does not represent the citizens. No one is really free anyway, no matter where they are.
I'm constantly reminded that there is NOWHERE to go to escape war, political conflict or oppression. Nowhere on Earth is safe anymore. You can't just say "I'll just go to ______! I'll be ok there!" There's nowhere to hide from war: hot war, cold war, nuclear war... Until everyone on Earth realizes its NOT "us against them" because we are ALL us and we are all them.
I weep for the people of Iran. The Persian culture is rich and beautiful, they have intellectuals and beauty queens and innovators and nerds and cool kids and students and mommies and babies; they are just like you and me. How could anyone say "bomb Iran" like its funny (no one here said that, of course--I've heard it said elsewhere); it just blows my mind that humanity has come so far with technology, but we are still trying to kill each other to solve "problems" that we really shouldn't have, as advanced as we have become.
.....And, end melodramatic rant.
Seriously, though, we're fucked, aren't we.
People get the government they deserve. Iran is no different. Persia did have a great culture, once. But they turned their back on it, and their own native religions and culture in favor of militant Islam.
Same thing is basically happening in Turkey as well.
Hoder has been an apologist for the regime for years. Advocating for their nuclear weapons program, insulting regime opponents, and viciously anti-American. He's been hoist by his own petard and his imprisonment is a tragedy like Trotsky's murder - exactly what he deserves though provided by another manifestation of evil.
People not only have a right to resist tyranny and oppression, it is a duty. Every day of passive acceptance of a government is an affirmative vote in the continual referendum of legitimacy. It is safer in the short term to accept tyranny, but you take the risk that the tyrant's crimes will be punished and you will bear some of that just reward. Active opposition may kill you, like Neda or the White Rose society, but passive acceptance kills just as dead and in large doses - Dresden, Nagasaki, Tokyo...
"Bomb Iran" isn't a joke - the regime has been bombing the West for decades with impunity and now wants to present an existential threat. Far past time that all of the nihilist opponents of western civilization get treated according to their own rules - Hama rules.
Hey You is right. Hoder did a lot of bad things to Iranian Human rights activists and had a very bad name for betraying them inside the Iran and supporting and even helping their oppression. Inside Iran, people - specially human rights activist and civil society advocates - know him as a person who endangered many people and shared in the open societies closure. But despite all this, same human right activists are defending his right in having a lawyer and access to the media and his own rights as a prisoner.
I want to tell you two things:
1- Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan is not a human rights defender. He is part of all these oppressions in Iran. Even some people are saying that he is helping the state in writing charges against cyber-activist right now.
2- He should have his rights inside the prison. He is a human and defending his right is not dependent on what he has done to us. It is very delightful when you see Iranian bloggers are writing for his right and trying to keep him in the news.