Secretary of journalism and information in the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance announced today,
According to the information sources’ management article authorized by the cabinet at the end of November 2006 (see), all owners of information sources, websites, and weblogs, should register in www.samandehi.ir and www.Samandehi.com starting at January 1st, 2007″.
Archer
You said registration is mandatory, does it mean that people who will not register their blogs or websites will be punished? How do you think will it reflect on iranian blogosphere? What do you think iranian bloggers will do?
If the rule would be applied, I think, it will be an awful news for iranian blogosphere.
Comment by ella — December 31, 2006 @ 12:56 am
Ella,
I think the only people who may register their blogs are teenagers who post romantic “safe” poems. For any person who is talking about politics/religion/culture/anything worthwhile, registration will mean exposing their identities and putting themselves in trouble.
For your information, the Iranians are used to these types of rules who will not be carried out at all. I just remind you that most Iranian taxi drivers are non-registered and yet they make a living out of it.
If you ask me, this rule is authorized to decrease unemployment rate. Who do you think is going to read hundreds of thousands of blog in a daily basis?
Comment by kamangir — December 31, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Archer
If you ask me, this rule is authorized to decrease unemployment rate.
:-) :-) ;-)
BTW your answer reminded me of a theory one guy have regarding “Why islamic fundamentalists got booted out of Somalia” He reasoned that although fundamentalists did introduce all different rules of behaviour many somalians where not exactly against some of these rules. However when they actually started to enforce all these rules (atop all of them, the prohibition to chew khat, a very mild narcotic substance similar to coffee), that was too much for somalians.
Comment by ella — January 1, 2007 @ 9:18 pm
ups,a mistake. Pls read many somalians were i/o where
Comment by ella — January 1, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
Ella,
And the conclusion? Deny my freedom, but give me my khat? ;)
Comment by kamangir — January 2, 2007 @ 12:30 am
[...] Starting January 1st, Iranian bloggers are expected to register (link in Persian) their blogs with a governmental agency and receive a registration number to put on their websites, my Iranian sources tells me. Apparently, failure to comply within the two months deadline will result in filtering. This has also been reported here before, but there are still a lot of unclear issues. [...]
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[...] their civil liberties. Following the law which mandated registration of all blogs and web sites (see), the Blogestan blow off with posts in every blog condemning the obstruction of the primary right [...]
Pingback by Iranian Pursuit of Civil Rights « Kamangir (Archer) - کمانگیر — January 12, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
[...] On December 2006, the Islamic Republic announced a new mandate for Iranian blogs and websites to register in a state-run website and give out all their private [...]
Pingback by Kamangir (Archer) - کمانگیر » Blog Archive » More Crackdown on Blogs, on the Way? — August 7, 2007 @ 5:02 pm