Hossein Derakhshan  (courtesy of Global Voices Advocacy)

Iran has continued with its anti-free speech stance by arresting, Hossein Derakhshan, a prominent blogger in the country.  Hossein who writes one of the most popular blogs in Iran was arrested after he came back to the country a few weeks ago after living in Canada and was being investigated for espionage for Israel.

This stems for a visit he made to Israel as a Canadian citizen,  according to Jahan News Site, Hossein admitted to spying for Israel, (though there has been no confirmation of this to CPB).

According to Global Voices, the arrest has not been confirmed, and we will be updating you as we get more on this.

H/T to ynetnews

***

Note (from Curt): Although Hoder was originally a proponent of the reformists in Iran, he became a strident defender of the current Iranian president and international laughingstock Ahmadinejad. The same shift saw him turn from advertising his goal of showing fellow Iranians who followed his blog that Israel was a real place with real people to tedious antisemitism. He alienated many supporters with the shift, although this may have been as much due to his apparent opportunism and general unreliability.

Regardless of how odious his ideas and his person might be to many, the CPB is devoted to the idea that airing one’s thoughts and feelings should be possible even by, perhaps especially by, tools. It is not the sole province of saints. (That doesn’t mean he has the right to expect support for the ideas themselves.)

Our friend Hamid Tehrani points out, however, that the Iranian publication that “broke the news” is notoriously unreliable and needs to be confirmed by a more reliable outlet.  At this point, that has still yet to be done.