"Do you accept the charges?" the interrogator asked.
"What charges?"
"That you have written things in your Web log that go against the Islamic system and that encourage people to topple the system," he said. "You are inviting corrupt American liberalism to rule Iran."
"I've tried to write my ideas and opinions in my Web log and to communicate with others in Farsi all over the world," I said. (LaTimes.com, 02/09/05.)
Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist is commenting on the article in the following way.
This is an interesting first-hand account--published under a pseudonym--of the legal harassment and intimidation that is an "occupational hazard" for Iranian journalists who criticize the government. Note that her interrogator seems convinced that the Iranian bloggers are a conspiracy funded and organized by the US. That doesn't seem to be true, which is bad for us, because it means that our government is not actively undermining the mullahs' regime. But it's also bad for the mullahs--because it means that the dissatisfaction with their regime is so widespread and spontaneous that the US doesn't have to summon it into existence. (TIADaily.com, Commentary: An Iranian Blogger's "Occupational Hazard, 02/09/05.)
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