Ahmadinejad, the Blogger

On Nov. 18, two Iranian Internet activists, Ali Behzadian Nejad and Omid Lavassani, were sentenced to six years in prison. Their crimes? Mr. Lavassani had the audacity to design a Web site for the leading opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mr. Nejad is being jailed for "published comments" written by others on his blog, and "propaganda against the system."

Iranian laws about the Web are purposely kept vague. Ahmed Batebi, the dissident who recently escaped Tehran after eight years in prison, told me that "The regime can arrest people and bloggers for any reason precisely because the laws are not clear."

A journalist in the city of Yazd recently reported several cases of bloggers being shut down or involved in lawsuits due to readers' comments. And on Nov. 14, local Iranian press reported that a new police unit was formed to fight "insults and the spreading of lies" on the Internet—another phrase which effectively bans any criticism of the regime.

Iran throws out Foreign Press

First AFP then Al Jazeera now Al Arabia. Soon there won't be any foreign press left in Iran. We don't like some of the anti-Western stuff that Press TV comes out with but that doesn't mean we chuck them out of the country.

The head of the Tehran bureau of pan-Arab television station Al-Arabiya said on Tuesday that Iranian officials have demanded his departure from the country.

Jazeera

Qatar's Al-Jazeera says it has been allowed to resume working in Iran, 14 months after being banned from the Islamic republic for allegedly fuelling ethnic problems.