{"id":125,"date":"2008-11-24T10:30:45","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T10:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/save-hoder-more-on-derakshan.html"},"modified":"2008-11-24T10:30:45","modified_gmt":"2008-11-24T10:30:45","slug":"save-hoder-more-on-derakshan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/save-hoder-more-on-derakshan.html","title":{"rendered":"Save Hoder: more on Derakshan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk Islam<\/a> and City of Brass<\/a> seem to have been the first to report on Iranian blogfather Hossein Derakshan’s arrest in Tehran last week, but the A-list bloggers are now awakening<\/a> to the story, as are some of the journalist bloggers<\/a>, which bodes well. There’s a great short piece in the IHT about Derakshan<\/a>, also known as Hoder (amalgam of his first\/last names), that provides more detail on Derakshan’s views – excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

Derakhshan also favored a nuclear-armed Iran. “We need it as a
\ndeterrent,” he argued, not against Israel, but against the United
\nStates, which organized a coup in Iran in 1953 and which still
\nmaintained a strong military presence in the region. (But he opposed,
\non environmental grounds, Iran developing nuclear power plants.) If war
\nwere to break out between Iran and the United Statse, he said, he would
\nfly home to fight for his country.<\/p>\n

Derakhshan had first visited Israel the previous year and had been
\ninvited back to address a conference on “Reform and Resistance in the
\nMiddle East” at Ben-Gurion University. For Iran, he favored reform, not
\nresistance: “The system is democratic enough to permit change through
\nelections. We can gradually change Iran. We are already doing it.”<\/p>\n

It is not clear why Derakhshan flew home this time, despite being
\nwarned in the past that he might be arrested for his blogs. However,
\nthose blogs have in the past year turned sharply pro-Iranian government
\nand anti-West.<\/p>\n

In the interview in Jerusalem two years ago, he said Ahmadinejad did
\nnot have the intellect to convince people who can think. “He’s street
\nsmart and has good social communication skills. But he can’t respond to
\nsophisticated questions,” he said.<\/p>\n

But in a blog posted two months ago, he wrote: “Ahmadinejad’s
\nbrilliant strategy of dismissing Israel and smiling to the U.S. has
\ndivided the U.S. at all levels and that’s a big achievement compared to
\n(former President Mohammed) Khatami’s weak and failed U.S. strategy
\nthat led to Iran being part of the ‘axis of evil.’ Now the same Bush
\nadministration has officially opened the diplomatic line. Please get
\nover Ahmadinejad’s scruffy look, prayers, and plain language and see
\nthese achievements.”<\/p>\n

An Iranian Web site reportedly close to that country’s intelligence
\ncommunity, Jahan News, claimed that Derakhshan had admitted during
\ninitial questioning to spying for Israel but said that his confession
\nincluded several “intricate points.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am greatly disturbed by the tidbit about him having confessed – which strongly suggests he’s been abused and possibly tortured. Of course for a regime that engages in torture, confessions for any crime come quite easily – which is why Obama’s pledge to stop all torture is so important in regaining our American moral authority, which would be very useful in applying pressure on Iran right now.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake – Hoder’s life is in serious danger. Iran just executed a businessman on similar charges<\/a> of spying. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk Islam and City of Brass seem to have been the first to report on Iranian blogfather Hossein Derakshan’s arrest in Tehran last week, but the A-list bloggers are now awakening to the story, as are some of the journalist bloggers, which bodes well. There’s a great short piece in the IHT about Derakshan, also…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,57,103,26],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-gash-of-civilizations","tag-free-speech","tag-iran","tag-islamsphere","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nSave Hoder: more on Derakshan - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Save Hoder: more on Derakshan - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Talk Islam and City of Brass seem to have been the first to report on Iranian blogfather Hossein Derakshan’s arrest in Tehran last week, but the A-list bloggers are now awakening to the story, as are some of the journalist bloggers, which bodes well. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}