Blogger threaten uniformity

On a visit to Tehran in spring 2006, Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan received a rather frosty sendoff from Iranian authorities. His blog, dedicated to discussions relating to Iranian politics, technology and pop culture, exposes a number of political and social issues that were once -- or perhaps still are -- unmentionables in Iran.

Citing a violation of Iran's integrity, authorities interrogated Derakhshan, then forced him to sign an apology for his blogging activities before permitting him to leave, he describes in his blog.

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Defiant of the warnings made by Iranian authorities, Derakhshan left his homeland and continued to blog. With some 20,000 subscribers, his site is one of the most widely read Persian-language blogs. After returning to Canada, his first order of business was to tell the world about his experience.

"The well-behaved official ... warned me not to write anything about the incident in my blog or I'd be formally prosecuted next time I was in Iran. But I didn't comply, since it was a silly and illogical demand," he posted on his blog in September.

Over the past three years, blogging in the Middle East has functioned as a mechanism for free speech, but often at a high cost. In a land where oppression -- political and social -- is often the norm, citizens across Iran and the Arab world are frequently turning to blogs as a source for noncompliance -- and many governments are not having it.

"[Internet] is a new threat just the way Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and BBC were a threat in the post World War II years," says Nancy Beth Jackson, a journalist and professor at Columbia University's School of International Affairs.