Looking for Freedom

Survey

2007-07-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

After spending two weeks on holiday in Iran I've finally returned to get on with some work! This week I have been working on a survey to (hopefully) support some of the findings from my textual analysis (when I get round to doing it!) of Iranian weblogs.

I'm calling for all Iranian bloggers to help me out here by sparing me just 10 minutes of their time to complete this survey. There are only 26 questions and all answers are optional. Your anonymity is ensured and your participation is voluntary.

The purpose of this survey is to collect qualitative data for an investigation into the influence of Iranian blogging and patterns of blog discourse. The project is, in part, as analysis of the linguistic strategies used in weblogs and the increased importance of blogs as a medium for free expression and in part, a survey of the opinions and viewpoints of Iranian bloggers.

Please help... Take the survey. Oh, and tell your friends :)

Sisters, Guard your Veil

2007-04-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

For some interesting reads on the latest crackdown on unIslamic dress look no further than Esther and Kamangir over at Mideast Youth!

See David's Flickr for more images.

Tehranis in Irani

2007-04-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since the last post as I've been busy tying up some bits of other work for uni. I can't wait until I can throw all my energy into this one project.

I have however been keeping on top of the wiki by adding my initial proposal for the research and short annotations of related literature. There has also been a couple of interesting articles in the news lately regarding travel in Iran. You should read all of these in the meantime :)

Iran's Other Face
A Nation of Nose Jobs, not Nuclear War
The Real Face of Iran

Happy Persian New Year

2007-03-22T03:22:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year Iran -- This photo was taken by Dream Land available on Flickr. For info on Norouz I've linked the Wikipedia article.

Internet Censorship

2007-03-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

Following research conducted by the Harvard Law School's OpenNet Intiative, The Financial Times have posted an interactive map of Internet censorship up on their webpage. It includes information from Cuba, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, China, Thailand and North Korea. For the purpose of my research however it is useful to see that Iran has 7.5 million Internet users with an 11% Internet penetration. According to Reporters without Borders Iran currently filters "10 million ‘immoral’ websites including the photo-sharing site flickr.com and YouTube." They also state that "Women’s rights websites are particularly heavily censored."

Kianoosh Sanjari

2007-03-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Independent has a news story up today on the release of Iranian blogger Kianoosh Sanjari and the arrests of women's rights campaigners during International Women's Day. It gives details of Sanjari's first interview since his release from Evin prison on Dec 27th where he describes some of the 'rough tactics' used by security forces to counter activism against the Islamic state.

Sanjari was arrested last October for reporting on the clashes between security forces and supporters of the Shi’a cleric Ayatollah Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi in his weblog. Sanjari, a dilligent member of the United Students Front has been actively involved in the defense of rights for political prisoners since he was 17 and been arrested on several occasions prior to October. As a result of this particular arrest he spent just under three months confined to the familiar walls of section 209 of the security detention center.

Happy International Womens Day

2007-03-08T05:46:00.001-08:00

Towards 8th March has a new post, 'Brave Iranian Women Fight for Rights.'

Looking for Freedom

2007-03-06T03:20:00.000-08:00

This blog has been set up to document the progress I make in my research to discover how Internet censorship in Iran is effecting the use of weblogs.

I'm currently studying for a Masters in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield and have chosen to focus my dissertation on Iranian weblogs. The official title of this project is 'Looking for Freedom - Internet Censorship in the Islamic Republic: The Case of the Iranian Blogger.'

Bear with me a little while and I'll soon have my full proposal up here.