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Hossein Derakhshan Has Been Arrested In Tehran

By: Meir Javedanfar

17/11/2008

According to Jahan News, which is close to Iran’s Intelligence community, Hoessein Derakhshan, the Iranian blogger who visited Israel in 2007 from Canada, has been arrested in Tehran.

According to what the article says are “credible sources”, Hossein has admitted to spying for Israel. His confessions are said to include some “intricate” points.

Jahan news talks about Hossein’s participation in a number of conferences in Israel. It says that Haaretz news paper described him as a friend of Israel. It then quotes Jerusalem Post and Haaretz as saying that Hossein had described Israel as a model of democracy, and that the Israeli and Turkish system of governance, and participation of religion in government was a good model for Iran.

It then goes on to say that Hossein had a picture in Jerusalem post under which he said “I want to humanise Israel for Iranians and to tell them that Israel is not thirsty for blood of Muslims, as propaganda from the Islamic Republic says”.

Note: It is true that Hossein was in Israel, on two separate occasions. However after his second trip here, he suddenly changed his opinion and started becoming vehemently anti- Israel in his blog. He also became a strong supporter of President Ahmadinejad and condemned Akbar Ganji and Ramin Jahanbegloo for being “pro regime change”.

Hossein returned to Iran about three weeks ago. Prior to his return, he started attacking Ayatollah Rafsanjani in his blog. It is possible that he fell fowl of a power struggle within Iran.


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Posted on : Nov 18 2008
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Posted under Iran- Social Issues, Uncategorized |