Blogging has opened a new horizon for self-expression in the traditionally mute Iranian society where individualism was less respected. This characteristic can be accounted for the huge popularity of blogs among especially Iranian youths. There are at least 65,000 active weblogs (out of estimated total of 2,000,000), written in the Persian language, the official language of Iran.

There are also a few hundred weblogs written by Iranians in English and other languages. Most of them, though, belong to expatriates who live in North America, Europe, Japan, etc. Blogs By Iranians keeps a list of Iranian blogs written in English.

Timeline

• 2001
  • 7 September - Salman Jariri publishes the first Persian blog.
  • 5 November - Hossein Derakhshan publishes instruction on "How to make a blog in Persian" using Blogger.com's free service.

• 2002
  • 2 June - Cappuccino magazine is launched.
  • 21 June - PersianBlog is launched.

• 2003
  • 20 April - Sina Motallebi, journalist and blogger is arrested.
  • 26 September - Cafe Blog opens in north of Tehran.
  • 24 November - Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a deputy of the president, starts his blog, "Webnevesht".

• 2004
  • 16 January - Protesting MPs on sit-in starts a weblog.
  • 6 June - Persian Blogging festival starts.

• 2005
  • 5 January - Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's chief prosecuter, ordered major ISPs to filter PersianBlog and other blogging service websites.

Tools

• Persian Blog
• BlogSky
• BlogFa

Directories

• Blogs by Iranians Directory of weblogs that Iranians write in English language, either from inside or outside Iran.

Related books

• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gilmor (O'Reilly, 2004) ISBN 0-596-00733-7

Academic papers

• Doostdar, Alireza (Dec. 2004). "The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging": On Language, Culture, and Power in Persian Weblogestan. American Anthropologist 106(4).

• Jensen, Peder Are Nøstvold (Sep. 2004). A Case Study of Iranian English Language Weblogs, inside and outside of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

• Farrell, Henry and Drezner, Daniel W. (Aug. 2004). The Power and Politics of Blogs.

Media articles

• Pelta-Heller, Zack (Feb. 2005). Building Blogs. AlterNet

• Boyd, Clark (Feb. 2005). The price paid for blogging Iran. BBC Online

• Motlagh,Jason (Feb. 2005). Words are weapons for Iranian bloggers. Washington Times

• Theodolou, Michael (Feb. 2005). Iran's bloggers get caught in crossfire of 'war on terror'. Christian Science Monitor

• Stack, Megan (Jan. 2005). Iran Attempts to Pull Plug on Web Dissidents. Los Angeles Times

• Fathi, Nazila (Jan. 2005). Iranian Cleric Turns Blogger In Campaign For Reform. New York Times

• Ho, Stephanie (Jan 2005). 'Blogging' Stirs Controversy in Iran. VOA News

(Nov. 2004). Iran fights to keep Gulf Persian. BBC News

• Lobe, Jim (Nov. 2004). Rights groups condemn Iran's internet crackdown. EurasiaNet

• Macintyre, Ben (Nov. 2004). Welcome to the new Tom Paines. The Times Online.

• Fathi, Nazila (Nov. 2004). Iran Jails More Journalists and Blocks Web Sites. New York Times.

• W. Drezner, Daniel and Farrell, Henry (Nov. 2004). Web of Influence. Foreign Policy.

• Theodolou, Michael (Nov. 2004). Iran's hard-liners turn a censorious eye on Web journalists. Christian Science Monitor.

• Bahari, Maziar (Nov. 2004). Iran: 'Hey World, Pay Attention to Us!'. Newsweek.

• Bahari, Maziar (Nov. 2004). Closing the Cybergates. Newsweek International.

• Bloggers Protest Internet Crackdown. (Sept. 2004). International Freedom of Expression eXchange

• Glaser, Mark (Sep. 2004). Iranian Bloggers Protest Government Crackdown on Reformist News Sites. Online Journalism Review.

• Amir-Ebrahimi, Masserat (Sep 2004). Performance in Everyday Life and the Rediscovery of the "Self" in Iranian Weblogs. "Badjens" Iranian Feminist Newsletter

• Iran's bloggers in censorship protest. (Sep. 2004). BBC News Online.

• Gillmor, Dan (Apr. 2004). Weblogs gaining maturity, becoming more useful. San Jose Mercury News.

• Bazzi, Mohamad (Mar. 2004). Cleric's Web site breaches tradition. Newsday.

• Murphy, Brian (Feb. 2004). Blogging boom in Iran defies media control. Associated Press.

• Glaser, Mark (Jan. 2004). Iranian Journalist Credits Blogs for Playing Key Role in His Release From Prison. Online Journalism Review.

• Derakhshan, Hossein (Jan. 2004). Censor this: Iran's web of lies. OpenDemocracy.

• Scullion, Aaron (Dec. 2003). Iran's president defends web control. BBC News Online.

• Scullion, Aaron (Dec. 2003). Iranian bloggers rally against censorship. BBC News Online.

• Derakhshan, Hossein (Nov. 2003). Blogs makes them feel free. Tekka Magazine.

• (Jul. 2003). The Blog Shall Make You Free. Wall Street Journal.

• McLaughlin, Erin (Jul. 2003). Iran keeps an eye on the bloggers. CNN.com International.

• Moallemian, Pedram (Jul 2003). Blogs shall set you free. The Iranian.

• Delio, Michelle (May 2004). Blogs Opening Iranian Society?. Wired News.

• Thompson, Bill (May 2003). Gagging the Bloggers.BBC News Online.

• Wente, Margaret (May 2003). The story of the Internet and the frustrated mullahs. The Globe and Mail.

• Yousefizadeh, Pejman (May 2003). Blogging for Revolution .Tech Central Station.

• Brooks, Allison (May 2003). Bloggers United. Newsweek Online.

• Moallemian, Pedram (May 2003). Iran's Web Log Quandary. The Blanket.

• Glaser, Mark (Apr. 2003). Weblogs Unite to Protest Detained Iranian Blogger . Online Journalism Review.

• Derakhshan, Hossein (Mar. 2003). Weblogs, an Iranian Perspective. Editor: Myself.

• Rezakhani, Khodadad (Feb. 2003). Bringing the Mountain to Mohammad. Shift online.

• Hermida, Alfred (Jun. 2002). Web gives a voice to Iranian women.BBC New Online.

• Khojasteh, Kaveh (Jun. 2002). Persian Weblogs. Not Exactly.

• ABRIC, Christophe (Mar. 2003). Iran-libre.com. tf1 News.

• Senza segreti, Dario (Mar. 2003). Silvia Santoni. Cultur-e.

Access Issues

A weblog on Iran, technology and pop culture, by Hossein Derakhshansays "Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling. They have also ordered to filter Orkut, Yahoo Personals and some other popular dating and social networking websites."

Slashdot contributor Bahamat says "I'm the Senior System Administrator for Anonymizer and we have a contract with Voice of America to provide free proxy service to Iran. It's based off of PrivateSurfing... Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences."

Interesting Facts

"Persian is now the fourth most widely used language on web logs." - The Times, 2004 [1]