This isn't as novel as it might seem -- see the AP story toward the bottom of this post for a reference to a blog started five years ago by then-Iranian Vice President Ali Abtahi. (He's got a Wiki entry, too, which says he was the first Iranian cabinet member to post a blog.)
"Iranian President Lambasts US on New Blog" - Reuters (Tehran), 13 August 2006
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president has launched a Web log, using his first entry to recount his poor upbringing and ask visitors to the site if they think the United States and Israel want to start a new world war.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose speeches are riddled with anti-U.S. rhetoric, also described how he was angered by American meddling in Iran even when he was at elementary school....
His defiance in the stand-off with the West has often played well in the Muslim world, where many are angered by U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Analyst Saeed Laylaz said the site -- available in Persian, Arabic, English and French at www.ahmadinejad.ir -- may be seeking to win support from abroad.
"Do you think that the U.S. and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?" the president asks visitors to the site, offering them the choice to vote 'yes' or 'no'.
Ahmadinejad describes how in the first grade at school -- for those aged about seven -- he read newspapers with the help of adults about how the then shah of Iran gave Americans living in Iran immunity from prosecution under Iranian laws.
"I realized that Mohammad Reza (Shah) attempted to add another page to the vicious case history which was the humiliation and indignity of the Iranian people versus Americans," he said.
He describes listening ardently to the speeches of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the shah's vociferous critic and later leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the monarchy.
He also discusses Iran's bloody 1980-1988 war with Iraq, in which Ahmadinejad fought as a Revolutionary Guard.
But he admitted his opening blog, which runs to more than 2,300 words in the English version, was too long. "From now onwards, I will try to make it simpler and shorter," he wrote.
"Mahmoud's Musings: Iran President Begins to Blog" - AFP (Tehran), 14 August 2006
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has started blogging, with the launch of his own Internet diary.
"The Personal Notes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" can now be read on the Internet at www.ahmadinejad.ir, in which he praises the Islamic republic established in 1979 as the outcome of the "sacrifice of thousands of martyrs, to the unbelievable astonishment of political analysts in both East and West."
But despite taking to technology to lay down his thoughts, the picture of Ahmadinejad shows him using a pen and paper rather than a computer keyboard.
His blog is presented with a conservative plain background, and is adorned only with the Iranian flag on the left and his picture, dressed in a dark suit, on the right.
Besides Persian, the blog also has English and Arabic versions -- with the French "under construction."...
Also see:
"Iranian President Launches PR Blitz with TV, Web Posting," by Allan Woods (in Washington, DC), CanWest News Service, 14 August 2006 (as posted to The Province (Vancouver) website)
WASHINGTON - Accused of virulent anti-Semitism, war-mongering and flagrant human-rights abuses, the president of Iran appeared Sunday to launch a public-relations counter-attack by granting a rare U.S. television interview on the same day he made his first post to a web log, accusing the U.S. and Israel of "pulling the trigger'' for world war.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes no attempt to disguise his distaste for U.S. President George W. Bush, accusing him of trying to build an ``empire'' and actively working against peace. But the leader of the country accused of supporting Hezbollah and lusting after a nuclear arsenal said in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes that he prefers diplomacy to war.
"The time of the bomb is in the past. It's behind us,'' he tells veteran newsman Mike Wallace. "Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges.''
Ahmadinejad is facing an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend all uranium-enrichment programs, which the West fears could be used to build nuclear weapons....
It seems like Ahmadinijad's blog is coming online at a time when other Iranian bloggers are under pressure to rein in their activities. See:
"Iranian Censors Clamp Down on Bloggers," by Brian Murphy - AP (Tehran), 13 August 2006, as carried by USA Today
Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president last year, ending years of freewheeling Web access that once made Iran among the most vibrant online locales in the Middle East.
The Internet censors are busy. Their targets include sexual content, international politics, local grumbling, chat rooms and anything else that makes the Islamic leadership uneasy. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, estimates at least 50 bloggers have been detained since last year.
The cyber-squeeze, however, is seen as more than a broad slap at dissent. It shows vividly what authorities can and can't control.
The Islamic establishment is able to filter the Web through its oversight of all Iran's Internet service providers, as well as media, cinema, literature and other arts....
"It's the classic Iranian battle of freedom against controls," said Isa Saharkhiz, a member of the Iranian branch of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "The crackdown on bloggers is part of a growing censorship policy by the state."
Iranian bloggers first started proliferating about five years ago. There even was a sense of official encouragement after then Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi went online. Soon, hundreds were blogging in both English, Farsi and a hybrid of Farsi spelled in Latin characters.
Most used pseudonyms, but no subject was taboo: sex, off-color jokes, personal confessions, and dumping on the ruling clerics.
One blogger's chat room included a rant about the likes and dislikes of the theocrats. Listed among "the mullahs' favorite statesmen" were Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe.
An Iranian bilingual blogger known as "scarecrew" grumbled in English: "Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an island. What is it that they don't want us to know? ... No matter how, I just wanna get myself out of this place."
Another, "Iran Shadow," lashed Ahmadinejad for "pursuing polices that are reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the Islamic Republic."
Officials began fighting back last year. Ahmadinejad's election, coupled with the conservative sweep of parliament in 2004, left liberals powerless.
Thousands of websites have been blocked, including anti-regime groups from Iranians abroad and news outlets such as the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Persian Service and the Voice of America. But it remains a spotty assault. Sites such as the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post and California-based regimechangeiran.com remain accessible. (The Associated Press site also was not blocked as of early August.)
Bloggers face more than being unplugged. Those detained are charged under anti-subversion laws that carry a maximum sentence of five years. Convictions so far have been largely suspended sentences.
For links to earlier stories on Iranian blogs, see Foreign Media on Iranian Elections: Blogger Bias?
Added 28 August:
"Blogging Mr. President," by Benjamin Sutherland - Newsweek, 16 August 2006
...The bigger question, perhaps, is just who the Iranian leader is targeting for his musings. The site is clearly designed for an international audience. Published in Farsi, it’s also available in Arabic and English, with a French translation on its way. And with the approach of the Aug. 31 deadline for the possible imposition of sanctions against Tehran if the mullahs don’t abandon their uranium-enrichment plans, it’s hardly a surprise that Ahmadinejad wants a PR campaign to muster global sympathy.
There’s also the fact that with a state-controlled media, Ahmadinejad has the means to get his message to the masses by more conventional means. A blog, however, with its connotations of hipness and modernity provides the Iranian with a counterintuitive way to deliver his message—and target a new domestic audience: youth. “He is trying to talk to people who ignore him through other media like TV or newspapers,” says Mani Monajjemi, a Tehran-based blogger. Another blogger in Tehran, who requested anonymity because authorities closed down her site for six months, says Ahmadinejad is struggling to find a way to show that he cares about the way young people live....
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