Date

PERSIAN

No, you're Iranian

Facebook culture wars

by Roozbeh Shirazi
13-Aug-2007
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>>>

FREE SPEECH

A threat to all of us

If someone could silence whatever he or she didn't like we are all going to be in big trouble soon

by Hossein Derakhshan
13-Aug-2007
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>>>

HODER

Price of baseless accusations

Hoder was not aware of the terms and conditions of writing on the web

by Kianosh Saadati
13-Aug-2007
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.>>>