On February 22nd, Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian blogger and human rights activist, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of "espionage and insulting the country's leaders." This sentence would appear to be an effort by the government of Iran to send a message to other bloggers and independent government critics in that country.

At the start of January, Tehran's prosecutor-general ordered Internet Service Providers to block the Internet's most popular weblog services. Iranian Internet users are now almost entirely cut off from the blogsphere. Arash Sigarchi was most recently arrested on January 17th. He had edited a daily newspaper in the province of Gilan and had been publishing a social and political blog for the past three years. His blog has from time to time dealt with human rights issues and criticized government policies. 99. At the time of his arrest he had been protesting the harassment, detention and mistreatment of more than 20 journalists and bloggers in Iran in recent months. Read more

Human Rights First's Arash Sigarchi info page | Free Arash and Mojitaba from the Committee to Protect Bloggers | Penlog, the Association of Iranian Blogwriters | Reporters Without Borders (RSF) | February 22nd was declared Free Mojitaba and Iraq Day | The Bloggers' Rights Blog