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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iranian Vice President Hosts Popular Blog |
| 2004-03-11 |
| He doesn’t think his day job, as a Shia Muslim cleric who happens to be one of Iran’s six vice presidents, should keep him from sharing intimate thoughts with the world. So he has a personal Web site, where he writes a daily blog and keeps a photo diary that provides a comic view into Iran’s government. The jovial, bearded cleric sets the tone on his home page: "Let me be myself - Mohammad Ali Abtahi - in this website; regardless to my official and governmental status." Above that mantra is a photo of Abtahi flashing a wide grin.... "For a long time, I felt that my official responsibilities were like a prison," Abtahi, the vice president for parliamentary and legal affairs, said in an interview. "The demands of my job were distancing me everyday from the people, so I decided to start this Web site." The site - in English at www.webnevesht.com/en/ - became an instant hit when it debuted in December. It gets 15,000 visitors a day and is among the most popular of thousands of Iranian blogs that have become a major way to vent frustration at Iran’s rule by unelected clerics. Islamic hard-liners have not cracked down on the Internet in Iran as they have on pro-reform newspapers, of which they have closed dozens since the late 1990s. Still, Abtahi’s site has drawn the clerics’ wrath. Conservative newspapers regularly accuse Abtahi of demeaning his political post and his religious rank (he is a hojatoleslam, one level below an ayatollah). ... Abtahi has been able to speak his mind despite pressure from conservatives because he has been one of Khatami’s closest aides for 20 years. In Khatami’s first administration, he served as the president’s chief of staff. Abtahi insists that he personally answers all the mail sent in by his readers - 30 to 40 messages a day. Some ask him to help solve problems with government agencies; others argue with his politics or just express their support. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |