Save Hoder: more on Derakshan

Talk Islam and City of Brass seem to have been the first to report on Iranian blogfather Hossein Derakshan's arrest in Tehran last week, but the A-list bloggers are now awakening to the story, as are some of the journalist bloggers, which bodes well. There's a great short piece in the IHT about Derakshan, also known as Hoder (amalgam of his first/last names), that provides more detail on Derakshan's views - excerpt:

Derakhshan also favored a nuclear-armed Iran. "We need it as a deterrent," he argued, not against Israel, but against the United States, which organized a coup in Iran in 1953 and which still maintained a strong military presence in the region. (But he opposed, on environmental grounds, Iran developing nuclear power plants.) If war were to break out between Iran and the United Statse, he said, he would fly home to fight for his country.

Derakhshan had first visited Israel the previous year and had been invited back to address a conference on "Reform and Resistance in the Middle East" at Ben-Gurion University. For Iran, he favored reform, not resistance: "The system is democratic enough to permit change through elections. We can gradually change Iran. We are already doing it."

It is not clear why Derakhshan flew home this time, despite being warned in the past that he might be arrested for his blogs. However, those blogs have in the past year turned sharply pro-Iranian government and anti-West.

In the interview in Jerusalem two years ago, he said Ahmadinejad did not have the intellect to convince people who can think. "He's street smart and has good social communication skills. But he can't respond to sophisticated questions," he said.

But in a blog posted two months ago, he wrote: "Ahmadinejad's brilliant strategy of dismissing Israel and smiling to the U.S. has divided the U.S. at all levels and that's a big achievement compared to (former President Mohammed) Khatami's weak and failed U.S. strategy that led to Iran being part of the 'axis of evil.' Now the same Bush administration has officially opened the diplomatic line. Please get over Ahmadinejad's scruffy look, prayers, and plain language and see these achievements."

An Iranian Web site reportedly close to that country's intelligence community, Jahan News, claimed that Derakhshan had admitted during initial questioning to spying for Israel but said that his confession included several "intricate points."

I am greatly disturbed by the tidbit about him having confessed - which strongly suggests he's been abused and possibly tortured. Of course for a regime that engages in torture, confessions for any crime come quite easily - which is why Obama's pledge to stop all torture is so important in regaining our American moral authority, which would be very useful in applying pressure on Iran right now.

Make no mistake - Hoder's life is in serious danger. Iran just executed a businessman on similar charges of spying.