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ehh feeling a good bit of guilt: Iranian blogger Derakhshan sentenced to 19 years
I’m feeling a lot of guilt. I just read on Fox that blogger Hossein Derakhshan has been sentenced to 19 years in prison largely because of his Israel trip(s). His first trip here was because I invited him, got BGU to invite him, to come and give a major talk to our department at our end of the year special. Lisa Goldman knew him and that was how I was able to connect up and bring him here for an expense-paid trip.
But when he got here I really became convinced that he was an Iranian agent. You know something put my back up because this was when I was off in super lefty kum ba ya la la land. His behaviour was bizarre, I won’t go into details (I think Lisa has some on her blog in her archives), he acted strange when he gave his talk and wasn’t able to answer some pretty basic questions regarding the Iranian blogosphere at the time (that a couple of Farsi speaking students knew the answers to), and he asked some strange questions of people he met here. The whole thing was really bizarre and I felt a great deal of relief when he was on a plane out. I got nervous enough about him that I talked with some eh folks, and some other people who encountered him here got nervous enough about him that they talked with eh some folks, and those folks got nervous enough to investigate but finally decided that he’s just an opportunistic idiot with the charm of a sociopath who was able to rise to prominence because who the hell speaks Farsi in the media (and he was being interviewed and feted by major media around the globe) or among bloggers and so everything he said tended to be taken as ‘expert’ fact. When he came back about a year later for a conference on blogging, I didn’t go anywhere near him (and the conference panel featured people outside of Hoder who were utterly clueless about blogging, the internet and possibly life in general).
There are so many bizarre and contradictory facts about this guy. A lot of ex-pat Iranian bloggers were afraid of him, as in really afraid. How many people get on the exclusive invite list for Ahmadinejad’s birthday celebration in New York, especially when they are supposed to be, at the time, ‘opposing’ the things going on in Iran? And then pretty quickly he became Ahmadinejad’s best cheerleader. His family is, according to a number of Iranian bloggers who know him, highly connected to the ‘royalty’ of the powers that be in Iran.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this. I do know that I feel terrible that I ever invited him here. I definitely feel terrible that he’s been sentenced to 19 years in an Iranian prison because I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Damn, I just feel terrible and very sorry for him.
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(Photo by Dani Machlis)
about 2 years ago
Maybe he simply lost favor in the eyes of the Powers That Be, after having been their favorite serf for a while.
Convicting him of the heinous crime of visiting Israel could have been a simple publicity cover up – much “nicer” than publicizing the possible truth of his having gone into a petty quarrel with one of the Powers That Be.
about 2 years ago
I would not give it another thought because you cannot know the truth of the matter. Even his “sentencing” could be an Iranian government ploy. Your street sense immediately put you on alert, and as time went by, more and more questions arose about this guy. Too many people were suspicious for it to be only your feeling. Too many Iranians are deathly afraid of him…. If he is unbalanced (and he sounds like he is), he may have crossed up with the Iranian government. Something about him is not right; it’s not your fault.
about 2 years ago
I wouldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about this. I don’t mean to be flip, but this guy made his own choices. He didn’t have to go to Israel. He didn’t have to go back to Iran. Who knows what was really happening and why he wound up in prison. That’s the thing with countries like Iran: there’s a randomness to life because they have no control over what the government does.
about 2 years ago
Mike, I totally agree.
about 2 years ago
With Iran, you never know.
I once met an East German, when East Germany still was a faithful supporter of the idea to liberate the downtrodden masses all over the world by Communist Revolution. I had the same misgivings about that person and thought he might be working for East German Intelligence. Somewhat later word came that he had been arrested and imprisoned in East Germany.
The surprise was even greater when, after the fall of the Communist Empire, it was revealed that his conviction was a sham and that he actually was sent on an intelligence mission among inmates in the prison. He was, after all, an officer in the intelligence service.
In the world of subversive ideological warfare nothing is supposed to be what it looks like.
about 2 years ago
I remember a young Iranian PhD living in the States at the time of the revolution who became the public mouthpiece of the revolution to the West — and specially to the U.S. He flew to Paris just so he could fly back to Tehran with Khomeini in triumph.
That was March of 79. Sometime in 81, he was taken up on the roof of the Revolutionary Guard HQ and shot. The Interior Minister who implemented the execution was Mir-Hossain Mousavi, the “reformist” candidate for President in last summer’s elections.
I remember this guy particularly because he was a protege of a senior faculty member of the U. of Texas poly sci department named James Bill who gave interviews and speeches all around the country claiming that Khomeini was just an “agrarian reformer” who would be the greatest thing that ever happened to Iran. We see how that worked out. Dr Bill got laughed out of UT and wound up at some small institution in Virginia.
Iranian internal politics are wheels within wheels and all spinning to see who gets on the inside and gets the lions share of the power and loot. The luck of the losers can be very, very bad.
about 2 years ago
agreed with mike. i TOTALLY sympathize with your feeling guilty over such a thing, but he made his own choices — most importantly, the terrible choice to trust the iranian govt and go back there… and that’s the thing that really did him in, not the visit to israel.
about 2 years ago
plus, hoder just sounds like an all around bad egg. you reap what you sow. i’m really sorry that this happened to anyone, but it’s ONLY his fault! (and the crappy iranian regime’s…)
about 2 years ago
Sir John hmm interesting story and you and Mike make good points about the crazy Iranian regime not always being and doing what it seems on the surface. I feel really sorry for the young student who went back and then got killed for his loyalty from Mike’s story
C well he certainly isn’t a very nice person and he treated Lisa quite badly but yeah nobody deserves that. Having grown up there you’d think he’d a bit more sense.
about 2 years ago
And Dick’s story most likely would not be unusual either. Remember Stalin’s sudden and unreasonable purges of the communist leadership. Even those who for years killed others for him were never secure from his sudden mood swings and often enough easily ended up with the same fate of their victims.
Regimes run by more and more unreasonable dictators, such as Stalin, Hitler, the late Roman emperors or today Adolfdinedschad tend to distrust everybody in the end. This guy was lukewarm in his support of the islamic revolution? Shoot him, he must be a Jewish spy. And this guy, who so enthusiastically praises Adolfdinedshad? Shoot him as well, because this can only be a disguise, he definitely must be a Jewish spy only pretending to be a fanatic supporter.
And so on. The only good thing is, that historically these kind of events signaled the beginning of the end of that regime.
about 2 years ago
Have you heard of the book “Reading Lolita in Tehran?” I’m not sure I can say I liked the book since it had some places where the writing and structure really didn’t work for me, but I do think the book gave a good look at what it must be like living in a totalitarian regime.
The real problem wasn’t so much that you couldn’t criticize the regime (the events in the book took place before Imanutjob came to power), although that was a problem, but that even everyday people who didn’t care about politics had no protection from the government and that there was no personal space where the government couldn’t intrude. So everybody was always in some state of fear and there was not set of rules you could follow that would guarantee your safety.
The book was a NYT best seller. The author is an English lit prof and now lives in DC (I think).
about 2 years ago
Yael –
While it was really sweet of you to invite Derakhshan to speak to that faculty group at BGU five years ago after I asked you to, your invitation was not the reason he was able to enter Israel. Nor is the reason he is currently in Evin Prison’s political wing.
Well before his visit to Israel, Hossein was in contact with Professor Menashri, who has the chair for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Menashri invited Hossein to speak and paid for his ticket to Israel.
El Al security in Frankfurt called me before Hossein boarded his flight to Tel Aviv from there, and spoke with me in Hebrew; as his host, I was the one who took responsibility for his movements in Israel, because he was my house guest.
And, as you later verified, while Hossein is a narcissist and a user, he is not a spy.
Hossein returned to Iran in 2008 after the Iranian government, to which his family is connected at a high level, invited him to work for the English section of Press TV, their national broadcasting service.
Unfortunately, he got caught up in a little mullah rivalry soon after he returned to Iran, which is why he was arrested. The judge who sentenced him to 19 years did not mention his trips to Israel; the focus in Iranian media reports was on his insulting the Supreme Leader, which he did on his blog. Insulting the Supreme Leader is tantamount to treason in Iran.
Most Iranian with whom I spoke are pretty sure that Hossein will be released from jail after his family pays a huge bribe to judges, government officials and mullahs. He is highly unlikely to sit in jail for 19 years.
In any case, you need not feel guilty about having invited him to speak to the BGU faculty group. Your invitation is not the reason he was able to enter Israel; nor is it the reason for his current predicament.
about 2 years ago
Lisa many thanks for the update on this! It is very good to get this information (and reduces my feelings of responsibility significantly) . Many of the media reports were stating that it was because of his trips here that they sentenced him (again showing how wrong the MSM tends to get things!). It sounds very much in line with the cases that Dick, Sir John and Mike shared of internal craziness and politics and stupidity on the part of the victim.
Now that I know he won’t rot in jail for 19 years or be executed or anything along those lines I can work on purging the guilt that will certainly start in 3-2-1 over my next thought of “well, maybe they can torture him just a little bit, you know, really mildly but memorably with no permanent damage” because my blood still boils when I think about the way he treated you.
about 2 years ago
Ah yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Internal power plays within dictatorial regimes often follow this script: to prove to you that I am more powerful than you I will arrest some of your friends.
If he is a big fan of Adolfdinedschad he might indeed have stepped on some high-profile cleric’s toes. From what I hear there is quite a nasty rivalry between Adolf and them about who is the boss in Iran.