Blogger Victor Solano reports on a news article in French found in Radio Suisse Romande [fr]and one in Spanish on Spain's elpais.com [es] saying that the US army gave 20 million dollars to the FARC for the liberation of the 15 hostages .

In micro blogging website Twitter, Jerome Sutter [es] suggests that this economic exchange might be the cause of the few official reactions Sarkozy has had.

Also from Twitter, Gerente [es] quotes a famous radio anchor, Julito, from a popular radio show in W radio station, who reported that polemic Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo had said that “the liberation of the hostages was manipulative, roguish and horrible.”… turns out to be that what Vallejo really said [es] was that Ingrid Betancourt herself is those things,and the way that the media is concentrating only on her and not on all the other hundreds of hostages is scandalous.

Marsares from equinoXio [es] online magazine writes that the operation has been so perfect, people are now doubting it. He doesn't share this perception so then he proceeds to establish counterpoint arguments for their criticisms. However, he does make an allowance, admitting that the fact that the “Trojan horse” [en] strategy was used, by pretending to be a humanitarian mission and could make it harder for other hostages to receive any kind of humanitarian aid in the future.

Journalist and blogger Anastasia Moloney writes that some families fear that guerrillas will strike back at remaining hostages, killing them or hurting their families, and that now that Ingrid is freed along with the three North American citizens, that international pressure to free the remaining hostages will disappear.

Thumbnail photo by Redking

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 state policy to control blogs

About a year and a half ago, the Iranian government demanded that bloggers should register and provide their names and addresses on a site called Samandehi. Many people believed such a process would facilitate legal action against them.

Bloggers resisted and many published an “I do not register my blog/site” banner on their blogs. The Government then realised it cannot have real control of the situation, or force bloggers to register.

In the footsteps of Yemen?

Unfortunately, the Iranian case is not unique to the Middle East and to the world. In April, MidEastYouth talked about new repressive measures adopted by Yemen, quoting Walid Al-Saqaf, YemenPortal.net's administrator:

“This week, the government’s Minister of Information threatened to file lawsuits against news websites on the justification of ‘inciting hatred’ or ‘harming national interests’ and the other usual excuse they often use to prosecute journalists. The threat is even more severe for websites because the government would use the penal code instead of the press law. This means that website owners could receive even death penalties.”

“Don’t be upset, we'll execute you legally”

Nikahang, a leading Iranian online cartoonist and blogger, says [Fa]:

if this draft bill becomes law, everything will be based on interpretation and a simple blogger will be considered a center to destroy people’s religion! What can I say? Only people who disturb people’s mental security could support such a thing.

Mirza Kasra Bakhtyari writes [Fa] that Ali Larijani, the Iranian Parliament's President, supported discussing this draft bill and added that they have talked for hours with the Judiciary about it.

Ghomarashegahneh says [Fa]:

Mentioning ‘blogging' among crimes such as kidnapping, raping, armed robbery makes accusing bloggers easier than before… Such a law will harm the mental security of society more than the poor bloggers, who do not know what awaits them.

The blogger adds that the real causes of mental security problems are the economic crisis and repressive government policies.

Bazri warns [Fa]: “We should do our best to stop members of parliament from approving this draft bill. Tomorrow it will be too late. It is easy to accuse a blogger of apostasy and corruption. Let's tell the Parliament that to think differently is not a crime that should be punishable by death.”

Balocuh has published a cartoon where a cleric tells a woman about to be executed: “Don’t be upset, we'll execute you legally.”

Mahmood explains:

I believe that in the current circumstances, it is time to…stand united together against sectarianism and discrimination in all their forms. Therefore, I propose the following code to be adopted and signed by all Electronic Publishers, be they bloggers, webmasters, forum moderators, etc. The code was the result of discussions with friend and journalist Ahmed Al-Aradi of Al-Waqt who wrote an excellent series of articles about the situation in Bahrain entitled “The Manufacture of Hatred”. … I suggest we review the following text and come to an agreement on the final code which I propose that we all sign physically and electronically on the International Blog Day which coincides with the 31st of August.

One of the precepts that owners of blogs, websites, and forums are asked to commit to is as follows:

We refuse any suggestion or writings including a sectarian concept or an incitement to hatred, an abuse of the freedom of religion, doctrine or belief.

The full text can be seen in both Arabic and English here.