Iran Imprisons Canadian Blogger for 19 1/2 Years

Image from Wikipedia

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) The Current has a the following story today

Sept 28/10 - Pt 2: Hossein Derakshan
Hossein Derakshan is an Iranian-born Canadian and a controversial writer who's known as the "blogfather" of Iran. He's being held in Iran's notorious Evin Prison. And today he was sentenced to 19 years in prison. We talk to two people who are close to him.

Listen to Segment here (Pop-up)

[The piece begins with a short promo for another segment on the census]

Basically, the story is about an Iranian born Canadian blogger who blogged extensively about Iran.  A  2005 BBC report says:

Hossein Derakhshan, [Note sometimes his name has an h after the k] who keeps a weblog under the name of Hoder, has already made a name for himself in the Persian-language blogosphere.

He created the script that allows Iranians to keep online diaries in their native Persian language. But now, Derakhshan has taken his online activities to next level.
He is now producing an audio blog, or podcast.

Today's broadcast about his sentence includes interviews with his friend and ex-wife Marjan Alemi who learned about the sentence from Derakhshan's parents in Iran, who were excluded from the trial and sentencing.  In fact, she says, they got no word about what happened to him for 8 months after he disappeared.  There is also an interview with Maziar Bahari "a correspondent with Newsweek Magazine and [who] spent 118 days in Evin Prison. He was released last October. Maziar Bahari was in London, England."


The interviews revealed that Derakshan has been supportive of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and was invited to Iran and promised safety. Bahari said that the Iranian government is fragmented and it was the Revolutionary Guard that has imprisoned Derakshan.  In Bahari's case, the Canadian government was very vocal and active in working for his release.  Bahari said that in Derakshan's case, his parents, threatened by the Iranian government to not publicize the case, asked the Canadian government not to make it public. 


Here's the beginning of a 2003 post by Derakshan on weblogs and Iran from Sky of Red Poppies.

The real Iran
How weblogs can change the way the world sees Iran

By Hossein Derakhshan
October 1, 2003
The Iranian

Having lived almost all my life in the Islamic Republic of Iran, I've always wanted to see the West and why clerics in Iran dislike its values and lifestyle so much.

My only experience with these sorts of events was when I met another Iranian ex-pat who had been arrested in the Iranian airport as he was leaving for an international academic conference in Europe.  He said the international pressure helped get him out.  He also said that his imprisonment was meant to be a warning to others.  Bahari said the same thing about Derakshan's long sentence.

I would urge other bloggers to listen to the CBC broadcast and learn more about this situation and post about it.  The thing the Iranian government likes least - illustrated by this long sentence - is publicity about these things.

There's also a Facebook page to Free Hossein Derakhshan.  This is a time when bloggers can make a difference to free a fellow blogger.

Preparing to go into the Rabbit Hole

How does one prepare to go to federal prison? Monday, December 3, Tom Anderson reports to FCI (Federal Correctional Institute) Sheridan in Oregon. Tom suggested I read The Rabbit Hole, a blog written by another felon who entered a Florida FCI for three months last March. [Like all blogs it goes in reverse chronological order. Below is the beginning of the first post, thus it's at the bottom of the March Archives]

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Introduction and Background

On February 13, 2007, I was sentenced to 3 months confinement in a federal prison followed by 3 years supervised release with a special condition of 3 months home confinement with electronic monitoring.

In 6 days, I report to the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, FL. I must self-report by 2pm, however, the nice lady in the Receiving and Discharge department recommended I show up by noon or I risk not being able to purchase any necessary items from the commissary before the weekend (i.e. toothpaste, toothbrush, toilet paper, soap, shampoo, etc.). I am leaving Charlotte on a 9:40am (EST) flight, arriving in Pensacola at 10:27pm (CST). I will then take a cab to the prison 10 miles away. I will arrive with the clothes on my back, my wedding band (no stones), $1000 cash to place in my "account" for commisary and phone calls, reading glasses, and my driver's license (airline ID). It is my understanding I will be strip-searched and my clothes (and hopefully driver's license) returned to my wife by mail. By my calculations, I will be released on June 29, 2007. I have already purchased the return ticket so I hope I calculated correctly. I have 72 hours to get back to Charlotte and contact the probation department to begin my home confinement.

I have decided to share the thoughts of my prison experience because of the paucity of information available on the subject (nothwithstanding a handful of books and websites I have found). There are, I am sure, good reasons for this. For one, people who have been convicted of a crime are not usually interested in publishing details of a consequence that may be a source of shame or embarrassment. Fair enough. Additionally, the internet as we know it is only about 12 years old and blogging is an even newer phenomenon so the vast majority of current inmates lack experience with the entire concept of sharing their life in such a public manner. Finally, blogging requires a certain technical expertise and internet marketing savvy. None of these are constraints for me.

I am not normally comfortable with sharing my personal life in such a public manner. I sympathize with the fears of Winnie-the-Pooh:

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. "

Nonetheless, there is value to me, and I hope to others, in documenting my experience.

I will not spend much time commenting on either the process or the substance of the government's prosecution of my case. The law is the law and the facts are the facts. Whether I agree or disagree at this point on this matter or that matter is really irrelevant. I entered a guilty plea, accepted responsibility, paid restitution, and received my sentence. It is what it is.

In addition, given that I am about to serve time in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons followed by 3 years under the supervision of the Federal Department of Probation, it is simply not prudent to be commenting on my case beyond what has been entered in the record, either in the form of documents submitted by my lawyers or statements made directly by me in court. Finally, the entire experience is still somewhat raw and it is common wisdom that one should avoid making comments on the record that one might later regret without adequate time for reflection.

Nonetheless, I know that the first question you are asking is, "What did this guy do to receive a federal prison sentence? How did he get to this point?"

The barest facts are as follows: On July 21, 2005, my home was raided by 7 FBI agents at 6am. . . .

[This excerpt came from here.]