Archive - Aug 13, 2007

Shutting Down Hoder

Hosting Matters, a Florida based web-hosting provider, has recently decided to terminate Hossein Derakhshan's influential website on the basis of a defamation allegation by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy, a neo-conservative think-tank because of alleged Khalaji's support for the Iran Freedom Initiative, a concerted effort for regime change in Iran.>>>

Going too far

In the dispute between Mehdi Khalaji and Hossein Derakhshan, I sympathize with both Hossein and Mehdi, even though I have to take sides with free speech over truth. Hossein has a habit of throwing wild accusations. But even if all of them were malicious lies, he is still expressing his personal political opinion which cannot and should not be silenced. >>>

No, you're Iranian

There are more people from Persia than Iran on Facebook. Yup... Many young people of Iranian origin in the US construct 'Persian' as an alter-ego to being 'Iranian' because Iran has been reconstructed as something unattractive, backward, alien, and terrifyingly Muslim by their families, other Iranians in their social networks, and not least by American media and foreign policy ever since the Revolution. It is a defense mechanism against the (perceived) enormous social cost that comes with identifying as Iranian. I am fully open to the prospect that maybe it's not an "either-or" proposition, and some use the terms interchangeably-but looking at some of these group names, there seem to be a significant number of people that have crystallized Persian vs. Iranian into a dichotomous cultural struggle>>>

A threat to all of us

While everyone is on holidays, a new blow to online free speech has taken place and I would like to share it with you and ask for help. Last Friday, my blog was shut down by my hosting company (Florida-based Hosting Matters), as a result of a legal notice sent by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at a neo-conservative think-tank (Washington Institute for the Near East Policy with Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey on its advisory board). Khalaji's lawyer has sent a notice to my hosting company and also my domain registrar, Go Daddy, asking them to a) remove any 'defamatory' material about him, b) make me publish an apology, and c) pay $10,000 for the claimed damages>>>

Price of baseless accusations

TORONTO -- One of the most controversial and maybe most read Persian blogs has finally been shut down. It belonged to Hossein Derakhsan, aka Hoder. No doubt, many of his enemies and those who did not like him very much may be very happy. But only a few may even ask why this has happened. The following is a brief account about the rise and fall of the so called THE GODFATHER OF PERSIAN BLOG. I think one of his biggest mistakes was lack of knowledge and skill in the field of journalism and professional writing. Hoder was not aware of the terms and conditions of writing on the web. He simply accused anyone who did not think like him. Maybe this is why he called his blog: EDITOR MYSELF.>>>