Hi, Jadi

I don't know what to ask you. I'm 50 years old, I was born in the state of West Virginia in America I'm trying to understand what you are going through. I grew up in a poor family. However, I was able to work hard and a build a good life in my country. Ahmadinejad was in my country today. He angered me. However, I am not angry at the Iranian people because I don't know them. That is why I'm writing. I know you may not like Americans so I will understand if you don't respond. I would like to talk to someone in your country.

Hi friend,

I am glad that you wrote me. I like Americans :) There is nor reason to hate anybody in this world. People are People, anywhere. As you know many Iranians and specially the highly educated ones do immigrate to USA to study, work and live.
You may not Ahmadinejads views as Iranians views. There are few people in Iran who agree with Ahmadinejad when he talks about eliminating Israel or the absense of homosexuals in Iran. We feel ashamed of him when he talks like this and claims to be the elected president of Iran.

We do not have free elections here. Remeber Saddam, he was also the elected president of the Iran and if Ahmadinejad is elected by the 20% of the Iranians votes, Saddam had 99.9%!

In Iran we have police, we have prisons and we have tortue and execution so don't astonish when nobody tells Ahmadinejad that he is a lier when he says there is no problem in having a satelite reciever and people are free. But good news is if you browse Iranians weblogs (which has a little more freedom), you will see that many people are speaking about homosexuals anf if Iran let Bush to come to the Tehran university and speak against our ideologies :)

We are friends, we respect others and we love nature, freedom and peace. You may not here from us because MAINSTREAM media is not interested in us. They prefer hatred too. They love the photos of people who want to die for Islam not the people who want to live in peace. Oh! I have recently seen some changes in this pattern. These days we see more and more pictures from Iran in which people are shown as dissidents. For me this means WAR is comming. World should know that "People are not happy in Iran" so the war will justified. Let me finish like this: I am against the WAR. WAR will not help us.


P.S. I've also wrote some of my ideas (not that diffrent from what I'm writing here at Middle east youth.

Islamic Republic's president is at USA for the third time to talk with the world and tell them the truth about Iran. I have to leave home in a few minutes but I am leaving angry because he lies too much. I've heard that he told to the "world" that satellite relievers are not banned in Iran. These photos are from official news agencies...





... do photos lie? Or the president?

Wonderful news! We have received word that Kian was released from Evin
Prison last night. He is finally at home with his wife. Free Kian Campaign

I don't like my government. They torture, they abuse human rights, they suppress dissidents, they stone, they kill and ... but the solution is not the ugly WAR! We had war for 8 years and know that WAR DOES NOT IMPROVES anything. We have our movements in Iran; Support them! War will ruin every effort. Don't Attack Iran: Sign the Petition.

Google was filtered yesterday for 12 hours, But Why? The actual answer is: WE don't know. I've tried to read everything about it and find out the anwer. Some officials told the interviweres taht "This blocking is intentional and is ordered from official authorities" but then rejected it and at the last, an official letter mentioned: "In some parts of the country, people did not had access to the google for some hours. This problem is fixed and everybody has access to this search engine".

But why did this happened? We can have different theories:

• 1. This was a technical failur. Our Internet blocking system has started using a "intelligent" robot (as they claim and interpret Intelegence!) which filters weblogs and websites with too many links to filtered sites and weblogs. With no doubt google has lots of links to the filtered sites (as it has links to all the internet) so our intelligent robot have filtered it.



• 2. This was done intendedly but after lots of pressure and complains, they rolled it back. This can be justified by the notation of "National Internet Project" which is going to be a big LAN (WAN?) inside the country, which provide hosting/access to legal sites.



• 3.This was a test to messure the reactions in case of a BIG crackdown on the Net. If this is the case, we showed them our concern (even people were talking about protesting google's censorship in the streets!)



• the last idea? 4. It was a silly deciesion of an individual and he applied it without consulting others of even informing them. After this happened, even authorities objected to it and nobody accepted the burden. This might seems strange to you but for me it is an acceptable idea :)

If I had to vote for one, I would vote to 1: Inteleggint robot's failure.

UPDATE: 17 Sep, 14:30. It is accessible once more. Now we have access to Google, gmail, and our biggest web provider: blogfa. I will write more about this tomorrow. Late night here.

UPDATE: 17 Sep, 8:30 morning. Those are still filtered!

It is late night here and I had a very busy day. A friend of mine and I, designed and installed two websites today. The first one is a new CMS for a major news site in Iran and the second one is a site to protest again anti woman TV ads (both are in Persian).

I was continuing some fine tunings and I've needed to google for a piece of info on the net and I've shocked by this:



Poof! Unbelievable. I checked with some friends on an IRC channel and they confirmed: It is blocked in one of the major ISPs (Datak telecom) and they added The gmail is blocked too!

I wish these two "site" which are a BIG part of the Net, will be accessible by tomorrow morning. This might be government's way of telling me "It is late! go and sleep. Don't forget to brush!".

p.s. Another friends screenshot

UPDATE: Many friends confirmed that Google and Gmail are filtered in many other ISPs! So this is not a minor fault. It is a Major fault or an unbelievable reality.

Poof. It should be around 4 months I think. Last night Kian was in the TV and reporters were interviewing him. Watching these are a torture. He was "happy" and "well" in a place like a yard and told the reporters that the prison was not bad(!) and he has access to phone, TV, books, chair and ... When questioned if he is in a private cell or a "suite", he answered "The only think which I do not have is a swimming pool!". I think he was making a clever joke to tell us that he has to say "everything is great and OK".

The good part is he is going to be released soon and then? In my opinion he will act as the compromise says:
1. do not complain or interview or tell anything against Iran and you can leave.
2. While abroad, do not complain and live safe. You can be a hero but not in Iran. Go and be a professor with extreme experiences in US.

And we still have others in the prison. Three students, 2 journalist (with the death penalty!), bus syndicate activists and many many others.

Today I have got an email containing this photo. This should be a scene from a match between the Iran and the Italy I think (not sure). People are circulating these photos (and photos like this one) for two reasons:



1. It is funny (in the rude form of the world) to see people jumping and competing in these funny cloths.

2. People are curious to see what this "women's sports" is! Although our women go and compete abroad and although "others" can see them, WE CAN NOT. The TV does not shows any activity during the women's sports news and people do wonder "Oh! So what's happening there which is unshowable?". So they circulate these photos and are very interested to see some photos from women's sports.

But I am posting this photo here to say "Our women are alive". I know that most of the women in the volleyball/football/Wushu/... team are not interested in wearing something like this (do they able to play their best in these cloths?) but THEY WANT TO PLAY! Just think about it. You love sports, you are the champion of your own country and you want to go further. But you can not unless you accept wearing something like this. They chose to do so. I think they are brave. They knew that people might laugh at them, stare at them and whisper about them; but they wanted to be themselves. I liked it and enjoyed it. I preferred a situation in which they are not forced to wear these but right now, I am proud of them.

I think shaking hand is a nice act :) In our culture it means respect and friendship but in Islam it is forbidden to touch (shaking hands) with the opposite sex. When I have got this video by email, I replied "I won't publish this because in my idea, shaking hands with a woman is absolutely OK." but my friend responded with "Yes, shaking hands is OK but the problem is how me and you will be punished for this act but it is OK for Ahmadinejad".

He is right, I will be punished if I shake hands with a woman. In the university it means banning from studding for 6 months and in the city, it might lead to lashes!

We also remember Khatami and his 2007 hand shaking incident. This happened in Italy and he was severely criticised by the conservative press for his "immoral behaviour" after returning back.

Ok, speaking is enough :) here is the video:



p.s. I was thinking where the GOOD NEWS are! I am writing about bad things all the time. I don't like it myself. And at last, I've found some good news. I have to write more about the activities, I have to write more about underground, I have write more about progressive groups and activities. I will try to do it.

I was at Kurdistan for a journey. When living at a 12 million city (Tehran), a travel to the nature becomes the best gift.

When I was there, different things happend in the country but the funniest one for me was the selection of Tehran as the 9th worst city to live in! hehe... what a warm returning back!

I also have two nice ideas and I want to focus more on writing a book about the Situation of the Internt in Iran. I have most of the data available and have to start writing it.

Next ? One another friend left the country and will never come back and two other close friends are planning to leave the country to "study" abroad. For us, "suding" is just a way to leave this Islamic Republic and find another opportunity abroad. To be honest, it is difficult to see friends immigrating. Leaving is not a solution. OK! OK! I have to be positive :) People do have a right to leave and sometimes they are more capable to do good things.

I've also finished reading The Dispossessed. Great book. I enjoyed reading it. We can not buy these books here so I've bought this when I was at Dubai last time; who knows how much should I wait till I will be able to buy The Left Hand of Darkness in another travel or ask somebody who is comming to Iran to buy and bring it with herself.