Update on Hoder

In recent days some sites and blogs wrote that Hossein Derakhshan, Hoder, was arrested. All refer to two things to prove such a claim: Iranian Jahan News site's report and this fact that Hoder has not updated his blog for 2 weeks.

According to Iran based Jahan News site, Hossein Derakhshan, Hoder, was arrested in Iran. According to the same site, Derakhshan who had traveled to Israel before, confessed about spying for that country. Jahan news site is not a reliabale source of information. You cannot find that any serious site or agency quote the news that are found there.

A couple days ago Irna, Islamic Republic Official website, published a kind of declaration from Hossein D. about reformists journalists in exile. You can find a rough translation of it here.

Some bloggers write if he is in jail we should support him despite the fact that he almost always supported Islamic government.

At present I think his arrest is just a theory.

The following is a translation of a press release issued on November 17, 2008, by the Islamic Republic Official website, Irna:

The latest state of “the deceived fugitives” according to Hossein D., one of the people misled by the reformist movement, who had escaped Iran many years ago and used to write against the Iranian peoples’ scared beliefs, has recently stated:

As of three years ago, many of my friends who were involved in the reformist press as writers and journalists were encouraged to leave the country , and write against the Velyate Faqih, the Hidden Imam, and lack of freedom in Iran, in exchange for financial guarantees[deceived by financial incentives].

Now, they live under the worst financial conditions. According to Hossein D. many of these “misled people” use tranquilising drugs, and some of them have attempted suicide once or twice.

He also added that with the exception of two or three people that I do not know how their living is provided for, the rest of them are forced to work as barbers, drivers, and restaurant servers, and it is interesting that [they do write] in the anti-Iranian web sites with their posted photos against the IRI and Ahmadi-nejad and receive money for what they write.

He stressed that the Westerners kept asking us to always work against a few things: Velayate Faqih, belief in the Hidden Imam, and fundamentalists (Principlists). And if people do not write what the Westerners want, they say try to blackmail them by threatening that if do you do not write what we want we will publishh the evidence that we [Westerners] have against you.

Some of my friends live in very bad financial and psychological conditions and may even wish their own death all the time.

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