Change for Equality reports that six members of One Million Signatures Campaign were arrested during and after a peaceful demonstration on Friday which was held in Tehran to celebrate May 1st. One of them is Nikzad Zanganeh, an Iranian blogger.

Telecom giant Nokia has spiffy slogan: “Connecting People.” But a new report reveals that Nokia may be helping connect the wrong people: Iranian security agents and grassroots dissidents. It seems Nokia has helped Iran install electronic surveillance equipment to intercept text messages, emails, and more. Several activists appear to have been jailed thanks to Nokia’s technology.

Last year, Nokia provided the state-owned Irantelecom with a “monitoring center,” which enables the regime to tap phones, read e-mails, and watch over all kinds of electronic data transmission. Designed to help stop crime and terror, the new surveillance system appears to have enhanced the regime’s ability to crack down on dissent. Last month, twelve women’s rights activists were arrested at a private meeting that security forces likely learned about through intercepts. Another arrested dissident was recently confronted by interrogators with transcripts of his text messaging.

“This is an absolute threat to the privacy of all Iranian activists,” says Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “It puts them in danger of being constantly monitored by the intelligence services, something that we know is already happening.” Some international advocates are now calling for new laws to prevent Western companies from selling such “dual-use” technology to Iran.

Given Nokia’s membership in the Beijing Association of Online Media, this can hardly be considered a surprise. Here’s what the Far Eastern Economic Review says about that association.

(I)t is clear that BAOM has become an active agent of the Chinese government’s initiatives to stifle discussion of political issues. The group’s slide into censorship shows how easily Beijing can co-opt Western firms into this effort.

Nokia is in illustrious company in its collaboration with the security apparatuses of tyranical governments. That company includes Cisco, Microsoft, Google (including YouTube and Orkut), Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, Skype, Secure Computing, Nortel and many others. The actions of these companies have directly resulted in the deprivation of the freedom, both figurative and physical, of countless patriots from dozens of countries. It has resulted in deep physical and emotional harm done to these individuals and their families. And each officer from each of these companies is directly responsible for this harm. Nokia is a firm, committed member of the “Western” money-for-blood crew.

If you have a Nokia phone, you might want to consider tossing it into the urinal at a public rest room. After all, it would synchronize nicely with the what Nokia’s doing to its users.

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Hamid Tehrani informs us that yet another Iranian blogger has been arrested.

Ghomaar, an Iran based blog, writes [fa]that Alireza Firouzi, a 19 year old blogger and student activist was arrested in Zanjan. The blogger adds that Firouzi is among student activists who revealed a sex scandal in Zanjan University in June 2008. Ghomaar adds that Alireza was interrogated by prosecutor of Zanjan about his blog and his posts.

Esmail Jafari, a journalist based in the southwestern city of Bushehr who keeps a blog called Rah Mardom (“Voice of the People”), was released from Bushehr prison on 18 March . . . He was arrested on 15 December after being sentenced to five months in prison on charges of anti-government propaganda and threatening national security.

This will mean even less scrutiny of the government’s actions in the wake of the death of the first blogger in prison.

Bluehost, which hosts wordpress blogs in Iran is about to start taking them down.  Bluehost which incidentally hosts the CPB site, is doing this to conform with US legislature.  The flip side of it is that these blogs are the only form or uncensored news and opinion in the Iranian society.  To take this blogs down would inadvertently be to the advantage and would be supporting the Iranian regime.

Bluehost has cited its Terms of Service in these actions and the fact that most blogs are hosted by it would see, lots of blogs which we depend on to get information out of Iran shutting down.

CPB asks Bluehost to reconsider, shutting or taking down these blogs would be to the detriment of free speech and open discussions in Iran.  It would be ‘assisting Iran’s censorship activities, if I can call it that.  Other hosts are starting todo the same and at this rate, we’ll have no blogs posting from Iran.

Ethan Zuckerman wrote about Bluehost taking down the Kubatana blog network from Zimbabwe and we hope that by writing on this we will at least get Bluehost to rethink their policy.

For any Iranian blogger who would like an alternative, we sugget that you get in touch with Esra’a at Mideastyouth to see if they can find a way of helping you out or to check out this list of free speech webhosts though we dont vouch for any of them.

According to the FCNN, three Christians, called Mazaher R. and Hamed S., as well as a woman, said to be Mazaher’s sister, were lured to a meeting on February 22 in the city of Isfahan by a man masquerading as a Christian and calling himself “Pastor Reza.” He was accompanied by a woman calling herself “Maria,” whom Reza introduced as his wife.

After some introductory conversation, Pastor Reza invited the 3 Christians to accompany him and his wife to a secret home church meeting, located on Ordibehesht Street near the Felezi Bridge in Isfahan, where he was to baptize a new convert in water.

After a considerable travel to this location, this alleged pastor mentions that the location arrived at was his home church building. Upon entering the alleged house, the 3 Christians were attacked by plain clothes officers, blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away to unknown location . . .

Following this incident, on February 5th, a day after the arrests (sic), plain clothes officers entered the home of Mazaher’s father and confiscated computers, printers, and several CD disks.

Mazaher’s sister was released a week later, apparently because she had not been blogging.

The report said several Christian websites have recently been shut down but did not provide details.

Mirsayafi was hastily buried in Tehran’s Behesht Zahar cemetery on 19 March without an autopsy being carried out. In a bid to find out how he died, his family has brought a complaint against the officials in charge of Evin prison, where he was held . . . 

Reporters Without Borders has learned that, according to the forensic doctor, the Evin prison documents detailing the time of Mirsayafi’s transfer to Loghman Hakim hospital and the time of his death contain irregularities.

RSF suggests that the UN should get involved.

We believe the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings should go as quickly as possible to Iran to investigate this case.

We agree wholeheartedly with this statement. However, considering that it took that selfsame organization two years to decide that Kareem was unjustly imprisoned in Egypt, only fools would hold their breath. We cannot rely on the UN or any other governmental organization. I wish we could.

Apparently the site reports that a 30-year-old Christian blogger in Isfahan was arrested a month ago.  “It is said he used to write about Christianity on his blog and a blog reader who turned out to be security agent contacted him (posing) as a Christian and arrested him.”

Sharia Law, as I understand it, considers “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, to be a very serious crime, punishable by death, at least in theory. We don’t know if this person was a Christian convert or not, however.

If anyone can confirm, or debunk, this story, please let us know.