Sohrab Razzaghi is a great man. He was my boss at my last job and we worked for 1 years with each other.

He asked me to join ICTRC Iran CSOs Training & Research Center as their system/network administrator and ICT trainer. I worked one happy year there with fabulous people: people who worked with a little salary but where glad to publish the Iran's civil society news on Koneshgaran.org (Persian).

The government closed our office 7 months ago without any explanation or clear official order (I've blogged it ). And know... Our beloved boss Sohrab Razzaghi was arrested 2 days ago. We have to wait one more day to see how is everything. Today is Friday and Friday is our weekend. This is a dirty trick that they arrest you on Wednesday so they can keep you there till Saturday and claim: We wanted to ask you a few questions (5mins most) but it was holidays and we had to waited till Saturday.

I am very busy these days. Doing some volunteer job for different NGOs and translating a book. I've also translated the Scroogled from Cory Doctorow into Persian.

Oh! I've also applied for a job in the UN, but I'm not that hopeful about it cause UN is not that interested in people who have kind of "problems" :)

What next? As you can see, I've decided to write more about my own life, so you will be able to feel it. This was not meant to be a news site at the first place.

Pooffff. you may won't believe it but I do. Ehsan Mansouri, Ahmad Ghassaban and Majid Tavakkoli, Three students of the Amir Kabir University condemned to 2, 2.5 and 3 years of prison yesterday.

Around 6 months ago, one night some 1 page newsletters were distributed in the university. In the morning students found these newsletters with some sentences against religions dignity with the logos of three studental magazines.

Nobody knows if they published those papers or Hardliners did it. The students denied this the day after and told this was done by hardliners so they will be able to shutdown universities magazines and crackdown the activities.

Ehsan Mansouri, Ahmad Ghassaban and Majid Tavakkoli arrested the day after and held in prison for 6 months. They told that they were tortured hardly but did not accepted the "crimes". And after six months this was the news headlines: "Three students condemned to 7.5 years in total" on some websites. No newspaper will write about this in a country which

In Iran (166th), journalists are the target of very aggressive behaviour by the authorities, who tolerate no criticism or expression of political or social demands. As in the past, it is Iran that jails the largest number of journalists in the Middle East. Eight are currently held there. Many other journalists are facing serious, trumped-up charges that could result in their being imprisoned for criticising stoning or corruption, or for working for foreign news media.

(RSFs worldwide press freedom index 2007)

Just after the announcement of Ahmadinejads speech at Colombia University Iranians students started asking him "Why are'nt you speak here at Tehran?". And he answered "Ok I will! I will speak at the Tehran university at this Monday"

Wow... what an opportunity. HE is going to speak with us, with the students. People have to organize and have at least one person at the tribune to ask some questions from him. Students used to knew that ALL of the attendance will be from the Basij (semi-military group) and pseudo-students.

The only elective group in our universities are Islamic Assemblies. The ex-members of this group sent an open letter to the president: "Dear president, as you've invited Bush to the Tehran university to talk freely, we are asking you to let ONE of our members to speak just a few minutes while you are at the Tehran university and ask you some questions.".

And the answer came to all the news agencies one night before HIS speech "Tomorrow speech suspended". Yes. Just one line, just one sentence.

This was one week ago. Today was "the next Monday" and last night, there was another one line "news": "President will be at the Tehran university tomorrow and will open the new semester"! (which opening? we've gone to the classes for more than two weeks already!)

And yes! He is at the university:



The above photo is the entrance of the Tehran university. And the below is the people who do not have the right to enter the university while the president want's to meet with the "students"!



He act like dictators: just visits elected audiences, the studnets only praise him, the media censors all these photos:



and nobody will ever asks him:


(right: free imprisoned students: Ahamad, Majid and Ehsan

left: We also have questions? Why only in Colombia?
)

The police ended the students presence with tear gasses and batons. Ahmadijenad just saw the Basij members and all the students clapped for him for being a brave man!



unsigned photos are from http://www.autnews.info/archives/1386,07,0004978

read more at Reuters