FREE SINA MOTALLEBI

This blog is about knowledge for development. This entry is about freedom to post information on the Internet. I was raised to believe in freedom of speech, and I think it is a fundamental policy that underlies successful knowledge for development efforts.

The BBC has a story today that bloggers worldwide are uniting to fight the imprisonment of an Iranian, Sina Motallebi. Mr Motallebi was the person behind the Rooznegar blog (in a language I can't read). According to the BBC report, he “was a staff reporter on a reformist newspaper called Hayat-e-No which was shut down by the Iranian authorities in January. On 20 April he was arrested, reportedly because of interviews with the press on his website and for defending another former Hayat-e-No journalist who ran a cartoon in a newspaper that offended the government.” The BBC says that he is being held for unspecified charges, and that a posting by his wife describing his arrest was removed from his blog.

Pedram Moallemian, whose San Diego blog is called “The Eyeranian” is one of many bloggers who are posting on this problem. He has provided an online petition (to Reporters without Borders), calling for the release of Mr. Motallebi.