Free Republic

In the United States the discourse about bloggers has mostly concerned whether they pose a risk to traditional media. In some other countries, the authorities apparently are worried that bloggers pose a threat to government control. The blogger community is already abuzz over the cases of several Iranian bloggers—Arash Sigarchi, who has been sentenced to 14 years in prison; Mojtaba Saminejad, who is apparently in jail awaiting trial; and Mohamad Reza Nasab Abdolahi, who has been sentenced to six months behind bars, reportedly for insulting the country's leaders. It's not that surprising that Iran—a member of Dubya's "axis of evil,"...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian journalist has been jailed for 14 years on charges ranging from espionage to insulting the country's leaders in an unusually heavy sentence in Iran, where tens of journalists have been tried in recent years. Rights activists said on Tuesday that Arash Sigarchi, 28, was convicted by the Revolutionary Court in the Caspian province of Gilan in northern Iran. Sigarchi, a newspaper editor in Gilan who also wrote an Internet journal or "weblog", was arrested last month after responding to a summons from the Intelligence Ministry. "In total, he has been given 14 years in prison,"...