NEWSIRAN

Navid Mohebbi, the youngest blogger ever arrested, was released by Iran over the weekend.

According to the Iranian Human Rights group RAHANA, the 18-year-old amateur blogger and women's rights advocate was released from Sari prison on Christmas.

The release, first announced on local radio and picked up by the Human Rights Activists News Agency over the weekend, came after Navid was sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment in a closed door court session in which he did not have access to his lawyer, likely a face-saving tactic by Iranian authorities.

While governments and mainstream media have paid little attention to Navid's case, Iran has been under heavy pressure from domestic opposition leaders and international human and women's rights activists to release him.

A Safe World for Women, a global women's rights and advocacy organization, was among the first group to reveal Navid's imprisonment and has led efforts on Change.org to pressure senior UN human rights officials to advocate for Navid's release. Over 600 Change.org members took action to demand UN help in getting Navid released, and we have covered Navid's case a number of times.

"It's wonderful to have some good news isn't it!" Christine Crowstaff, Founder of A Safe World for Women, told Change.org this morning. "Our Iran correspondent sends you many thanks for all you have done for Navid! And so do we all!"

UPDATE: Navid Mohebbi, the youngest blogger ever arrested, was released by Iran on Christmas Day! While governments and mainstream media have paid little attention to Navid's case, A Safe World for Women has led the way, using Change.org to pressure senior UN human rights officials into advocating for Navid's release. Over 600 Change.org members took action to demand UN help in getting Navid released. You can continue to follow Navid's case: just click 'Like' at the top of our Facebook page for occasional updates.

For the past couple years, Navid Mohebbi wrote down some musings about his country.

Every month or so, the Iranian teenager would blog on issues such as gender equality, the shenanigans of his government and the mistreatment of women around the world. Repeatedly, he would return to his site to write a new post only to find that his previous writing had been censored.

Occasionally, the Iranian Intelligence Service would interrogate him about his involvement in women's rights activities, such as organizing an International Women's Day event and the One Million Signatures Campaign.

But Navid was resilient. Each time his blog was tampered with, he would recover its archive and post again. When he suspended his blogging activity in April, it was due to a heavy load of school work, not fear of his government.

On September 18, 2010, eight police officers raided Navid's father's house, beat Navid and placed him under arrest. He was held without charge for two months, mostly in solitary confinement. Navid was refused legal council during a closed-door trial and on November 23, an Islamic Revolutionary Court convicted Mohebbi of acting against national security, propaganda against the state through connection with foreign media, insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic and insulting the current leader of the Islamic Republic - all for defending the rights of women.

Don't expect to see Jafar Panahi during this week's Cannes Film Festival in France. Sure, the Iranian filmmaker is world renowned for his artistic vision, and thought to be one of the best filmmakers in the entire world. And yes, Panahi was even selected to be one of the jurors at this year's Cannes Film Festival, an honor bestowed upon an elite few in the film industry.

So what's the problem? The problem is that since March 1, Panahi has been detained by Iranian authorities in the infamous Evin prison. That's a prison in Tehran, and likely one of the few in the world with a dedicated "political prisoners' wing." Evin prison is also the place where numerous members of the Bahá'í faith in Iran have been detained, as well as several Christian leaders within the country. Foreign journalists also have been known to be kept there, and it's a prison where public executions (in the form of hanging) routinely take place.

So what did Panahi do to earn himself a cell in Evin prison?

He's being accused by government authorities of making a film "against the regime following the post-election events" last year. On March 1, Panahi's house was bombarded by law enforcement officers, who rounded up Panahi, his wife, his daughter, and 15 house guests. Everyone else has been released; Panahi, of course, has not.

That's leading Amnesty International to identity Panahi as yet another prisoner of conscience within Iran, someone thrown in jail merely for saying, doing, or covering something that might be deemed critical of the Iranian regime.

With friends like Robert Mugabe, who needs enemies? Or maybe it's with friends like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who needs enemies?

Ah, the conundrum whenever two of the world's most prolific violators of human rights get together for dinner.

The Iranian president with a penchant for denying the Holocaust and pursuing nuclear weapons technology arrived in Zimbabwe for a two day meeting, bringing news that Iran would be investing in the country by opening a tractor factory and a textile plant. For his part, Robert Mugabe used the meeting to unite his Captain Planet ring to that of Ahmadinejad's, and call for mass resistance to the West.

"Because of the principled positions we have taken at both the domestic and international levels, Zimbabwe and Iran have been unjustly vilified and punished by Western countries," Mugabe said.

By shared principled positions, it's not clear if Mugabe was referring to the fact that both Zimbabwe and Iran have been accused of utilizing child soldiers, or the fact that both countries have a mutual love of cracking down on freedom of the press, or that both countries like their elections with a healthy dose of violence and repression.

Protesters clashing with police in the streets. Thousands marching and demanding an end to a tyrannical government. Hundreds arrested. Executions of those opposed to the establishment. A rigid clampdown on the media and press. That was Iran thirty years ago — and that is Iran today.

A year ago, Iranians could delude themselves that they inhabited a country with real, albeit limited, democracy. Now the gloves are off, and the regime has shown itself for what it truly is: an embryonic military dictatorship, taking on the veneer of religion, and brutally suppressing its own people.

Last June, Iran erupted in widespread protests after the disputed and fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (The usual means of ensuring that the “right” candidate won—reformers struck from the ballot by Islamic clerics—proved insufficient, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, personally intervened so his hand-picked designee would continue to wield authority.) The government of Iran responded to the protests with a campaign of ruthless repression against its population. Members of the Basij militia have brutally attacked demonstrators, and hundreds, if not thousands, have been detained by the government.