September 21, 2004



Bloggers protest new wave of censorship


A group of Iranian webloggers have changed the names of their weblogs into "Emrooz"- the name of one of the Iranian reformist websites who has been banned by Iran’s communications authorities several times- to protest against the recent filtering of websites, including Iranian reformist websites, as well as to protest against the new arrests and attacks to Iranian webloggers and internet activists.

This symbolic move formed after Toronto based Iranian weblogger Hossein Derakhshan suggested that Iranian weblogs change their names to
"Emrooz" on Monday and publish part of the news of "Emrooz" website in their weblogs to show the Iranian authorities that internet cannot be censored. This suggestion was welcomed unpredictably by a huge number of weblogs with different political views.

This campaign that is supported by Iranian vice president and blogger Mohammad Ali Abtahi needs international support and media coverage to have more effects and put pressure on Iranian authorities that are in charge of the censorship of internet in Iran.

Posted at September 21, 2004 08:59 AM