
On Wednesday, Iranian members of parliament voted to discuss a draft bill that seeks to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society.” The text of the bill would add, “establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,” to the list of crimes punishable by death.In recent years, some Iranian bloggers have been sent to jail and many have had their sites filtered. If the Iranian parliament approves this draft bill, bloggers fear they could be legally executed as criminals. No one has defined what it means to “disturb mental security in society”.Such discussion concerning blogs has not been unique to Iran. It shows that many authorities do not only wish to filter blogs, but also to eliminate bloggers!
A translated English copy of the proposed legislation is here. [International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran]
Image: "Women In Black," by Matthew Winterburn, who has some really neat photos of Iran in his Flickr stream.
Image: "Women In Black," by Matthew Winterburn, who has some really neat photos of Iran in his Flickr stream.
Posted by Xeni Jardin
As in the days of Noah...