How We Used Facebook To Try To Free Azerbaijan's 'Donkey Bloggers' 

The following is a guest post from Ali S. Novruzov, an Azerbaijani who blogs over at "In Mutatione Fortitudo." He describes how the arrests and convictions of Azerbaijan's "donkey bloggers" have pushed the country's youth activists into finding creative ways to get their message out using new technologies.

Back on July 8, late at night, I received an alarming text message. Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, two prominent Azerbaijani bloggers and youth leaders had been assaulted that evening and were still at the police station.

To get the latest updates, I immediately logged in to Facebook. There, at first still in shock, a handful of Azerbaijani youth activists were just beginning to pass on the news and spread the word.

During the four months that Emin and Adnan spent in confinement before and during their trial, their friends turned Facebook into a modern telegraph; their status updates were news dispatches, rather than answers to what-are-you-doing questions.

Chanting "Freedom" outside the court and waiting painstakingly for the first footage to be uploaded to YouTube became equally sacred rituals. And since the assault on the bloggers and their detention, countless text messages, phone calls, Facebook status updates, instant messages, emails, tweets, and blogposts were flying around.

It is not because we live in such a sophisticated high-tech society that we spread and read the news through such innovative ways, but rather it is the lack of media freedom that drives Azerbaijan's youth to turn to more creative forms of news distribution.

After years of pressure and media crackdowns, the avenues of free speech in Azerbaijan have become narrow backstreets. Local television channels completely ignored the detained-bloggers story; a whole staff of a popular youth newspaper resigned en mass, after sponsors blocked the publication of the bloggers' photos.

Opposition media wasn't of much help either -- one of the leading outlets published the worst smear article on Emin and Adnan in the best traditions of Soviet "Pravda."

Having been failed by traditional media, we were compelled to become our own citizen journalists -- for if we weren’t, no one would ever care.

News itself has become the most valuable asset to guard and pass on. Each time Twitter users managed to enter into the courtroom and live-tweet a session, it would not be a show of any particular craftsmanship, but it was a vital response to the judge's decision not to allow any filming or recording of the proceedings.

Emin and Adnan's case is not just another cause, or an attempt by a bunch of people to get their blogger friends out of jail. It is a struggle taking places in the trenches of freedom of expression. It is a manifestation of Repression 2.0, which is increasingly strangling the nascent online community in our country.

Now, after the court has sentenced Emin and Adnan to 2 and 1/2 and 2 years respectively, despite the huge internal and international pressure, one question is being frequently asked: How do Azerbaijani youth activists and citizen journalists feel? Are they scared? Will this verdict cause them to be less outspoken and critical in the future?

The results of this trial are as unpredictable as the trial was itself. From what we have witnessed, those youth activists and citizen journalists have become more politically conscious, outspoken, and organized.

They are small in number, but they are all as motivated as Emin Milli, who declared at the court that it was an honor for him to be imprisoned for his ideals.

And Emin’s last tweet before his arrest still has that prophetic quote from a late Azerbaijani president: "Without sacrifices there isn't any freedom. Therefore, today myself and people like me have to be arrested."

-- Ali S. Novruzov

Website Claims Missing Iranian Deputy Minister Held In Israel 

A conservative Iranian website, "Alef," has claimed that a former deputy defense minister who has been missing for three years was abducted by Israel's secret services with the collaboration of German and British intelligence services and is now being held by Israel.

"On the basis of a two-year investigation carried out by relevant bodies, [Ali Reza] Asghari was abducted by foreign intelligence services and is being held in a Zionist prison," "Alef" said.

Asghari, a retired general who served in the Revolutionary Guards, disappeared after arriving in Turkey in early February 2007. Iranian officials suggested that he had been kidnapped by Western intelligence services because of his background. Other sources said that Asghari, who is being referred to by some sources as the father of Hizballah, defected to the West.

The Associated Press reported that Hans Ruehle, a former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry, wrote in a Swiss newspaper in March that Asghari told the West that Iran was financing North Korean efforts to transform Syria into a nuclear power, leading to an Israeli air strike that targeted a site in Syria in September 2007.

The Israeli website ynetnews.com quoted analyst Ron Ben Yishai as saying that the "Alef" report could be a test to get a response out of Israel or the United States and further investigate where Asghari is being held.

The report adds that another possibility is that the Iranian claim is meant to counter Israeli claims that soldier Ron Arad is being held in Iran.

"Alef" is close to conservative lawmaker Ahmad Tavakoli.