Sayeed Habibi considers himself a marked man. The reason: his Internet blog that challenges some of the policies of Iran’s theocracy.
He predicts that someday – perhaps soon – he’ll be taken to prison and his site will be shut down. “And another voice will be silenced,” said Habibi, a 34-year-old postgraduate and an unofficial elder statesman for student-led activist movements. “I fully expect to see the inside of a jail cell.”
He’s not alone.
Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president last year, ending years of freewheeling Web access that once made Iran among the most vibrant online locales in the Middle East.
