Blogging in Iran

Blogging in Iran operates under special circumstances because the government restricts certain views. Blogs in general tend to be unregulated compared to other forms of expression in Iranian society. This characteristic can account for the huge popularity of blogs especially among Iranian youths. As of October 2005, there are estimated to be about 700,000 Iranian blogs (out of an estimated total of 100 million worldwide, of which about 40,000-110,000 are active, mostly written in Persian, the Iranian language).

There are also many weblogs written by Iranians in English and other languages. Most of them, though, belong to expatriates who live in North America, Europe, Japan, etc. Iran is the third-largest country of bloggers in the world after the United States and China. With more than 700,000 Persian blogs, mostly based in Iran, the Persian language is ranked as the second-most-popular language in the entire blogosphere.

Timeline

2001

• 7 September - The first Persian blog is published by Salman Jariri, using manual coding.
• 25 September - The blog using manual coding is published.
• 5 November - Instructions on "How to make a blog in Persian" using Blogger's free service is published, in response to readers' requests.

2002

• 2 June - Cappuccino magazine is launched.
• 13 June - PersianBlog.ir, the first free blog service in Persian, is launched by Ata Khalighi Sigaroudi, amongst others.
• 10 November - BlogSky.com, the second free blog service in Persian, is launched.

2003

• 20 April - Sina Motallebi, journalist and blogger is arrested.
• 26 September - Cafe Blog opens in northern Tehran.
• 24 November - Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, then Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, starts Webnevesht, the first blog by a member of the Iranian cabinet.

2004

• 16 January - Protesting MPs on sit-in start a weblog.
• 6 June - Persian Blogging festival starts.
• November - Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad arrested for writing about the arrests of three other bloggers.

2005

• 5 January - Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's Chief prosecutor, ordered major ISPs to filter PersianBlog and other blogging service websites.
• 27 January/12 February - Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad briefly released, then rearrested
• October Blog Herald estimate: 700,000 Iranian blogs, of which about 10% are active
• 11 October - Blogging courses starts in the holy city of Qom, the traditional home of Iran's religious establishment. They are run by the newly-established office of religious weblog expansion.

2006

• Persian language was listed by Technorati among 10 most common languages among bloggers.
• 14 August - President Ahmadinejad starts his multilingual blog with one long entry.
• 13 September - Mojtaba Saminejad is released from prison, after serving term.
• December: Mehrnoush Najafi Ragheb won city council election in Hamedan.
• 4 December: Masoumeh Ebtekar, the first female vice president of Iran starts her blog in Persian.

2007

• 24 December: Almost a year after starting her blog in Persian, Massoumeh Ebtekar starts her blog in English, under the title "Persian Paradox".

2008

• 1 November: Hossein Derakhshan, credited with starting the blogging revolution in Iran and frequently called "the father of Persian blogs" was arrested at his family home in Tehran, not long after arriving there. He was allowed four calls to his family, each lasting about one minute, during November. Amnesty International suggested that he was likely to face charges of "insulting religion", but he had not yet been charged as of mid-December.

• November: Revolutionary Guards announced its plan to launch 10000 blogs.

• 30 December: Alireza Jamshidi, the speaker of the Judicial system of Iran confirmed Derakhshan's arrest, said that Derakhshan was in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, that his case was in early discovery phase, and that among the accusations were that Derakhshan had allegedly written about the "Pure Imams".

2009

• January 1, 2009: Iranian's own video sharing site "IranianYouTube.com" was created

• 18 March 2009: Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, died in prison in Iran

• late April 2009: Hossein Derakhshan remained under detention and had not been charged.

Directories

• Iranians' Blogs - A directory of Iranians' English Language blogs
• Persian Blog
• BlogFa
• BlogSky
• Mihan Blog
• Parsi blog
• Social Network Of Iranian(persian) Bloggers
• PersianHaps (Social Bookmarking)
• Takblog
• Pars Weblog
• Kamyab blog

Related books

• We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs by Nasrin Alavi (Soft Skull Press /November 28, 2005) ISBN 1-933368-05-5
• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gilmor (O'Reilly, 2004) ISBN 0-596-00733-7

Academic papers

• Rahimi, Babak (September 2003). Cyberdissent: The Internet in Revolutionary Iran. Middle East Review of International Affairs, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya , 7(3).
• Doostdar, Alireza (Dec. 2004). "The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging": On Language, Culture, and Power in Persian Weblogestan. American Anthropologist 106(4).
• Jensen, Peder Are Nøstvold (Sep. 2004). A Case Study of Iranian English Language Weblogs, inside and outside of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Farrell, Henry and Drezner, Daniel W. (Aug. 2004). The Power and Politics of Blogs.
• Simmons, Erin A. (Jun. 2005). The Impact of the Weblog: A Case Study of The United States and Iran.
• Alexanian, Janet A. (Nov. 2006). Publicly Intimate Online: Iranian Web Logs in Southern California. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Duke University Press 26(1)
• Halevi, Jordan. (March 2006). The Iranian Weblog Research Project: Survey Results.
• Hendelman-Baavur, Liora (June 2007). "Promises and Perils of Weblogistan: Online Personal Journals and the Islamic Republic of Iran". The Middle East Review of International Affairs, 11(2).
• PetrossianL, Celine (2006). Liberating the Silenced: Iranian Bloggers in the Diaspora, California State University, Northridge.
• Sreberny, Annabelle (2007). 'Becoming Intellectual: The Blogestan and Public Political Space in the Islamic Republic', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol.34, No. 3, pp. 267–286
• Kelly, John and Bruce Etling (April 2008). Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere.
• Nafisi, Arman (June 2008). "Blogging Outside Iran: A Tool for Internal Democratic Change?". Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington.
• IHRDC (May 2009). Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Iran's Response to the Internet.

See also

• Media of Iran
• Internet censorship in Iran
• Communications in Iran

External links

• Iranian Blogs - Iranian Blogs
  
• Interactive Persian blogosphere map - Harvard University
• Blogging in Iran: The Electronic Manifestation of Persian Thought