Iran: Eight website technicians detained since two weeks ago

August 31, 2004 10:23 PM

Iran: Eight website technicians arrested in undisclosed location since two weeks ago They are said to have been providing hosting services and other technical support to the editors of the news websites. However, the banned websites are still operating with new addresses on free hosting services such as BlogSpot. Is it not newsworthy for the Western media? This is just the beginning of a major crackdown on Iranian news websites and ISPs after filtering them haven't been successful enough.
posted by hoder (4 comments total)

That does it, Friendster has really gone too far this time!
posted by Outlawyr at 4:48 AM on September 1, 2004

Cute domain name.
posted by smackfu at 6:34 AM on September 1, 2004

Is it not newsworthy for the Western media?

Sadly not really, because it already falls under general repression that is regularly covered (see also Cuba, North Korea) so this sort of thing is hardly surprising. At least if this was happening in, say, Turkey or China you could criticise something like the U.S. providing foreign aid or western companies doing business there.

If anything I'm surprised by the number of Iranians that are even on the internet, in that there are Iranian blogs, porn sites and politicial sites around.
posted by bobo123 at 9:25 AM on September 1, 2004

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi on Islamic feminism, living with fear, and losing trust in U.S. foreign policy.
posted by homunculus at 12:22 AM on September 2, 2004