Sad news. The day after the global "day of action" in support of Iranian bloggers Arash and Mojtaba, Arash Sigarchi was sentenced to 14 years in prison (via Politech). He's charged with espionage, and insulting both Ayatollahs Khomenei and Khamenei, among other "crimes" against the Iranian state.
If all this talk about Iranian blogs has whetted your appetite there's an excellent article on Alternet by Zack Pelta-Heller called Building Blogs about this (via Crooked Timbre). Two-thirds of Iranians are under 30 years old and many are educated. It's one of the main reasons observers think blogs have become so widespread in Iran. Latest counts are at 100,000 Persian blogs, according to Pelta-Heller.
Who's getting rich from COVID-19?
Boris Johnson's government stands accused of 'COVID cronyism', after handing out staggering sums of money to controversial private firms to fight COVID-19. Often the terms of these deals are kept secret, with no value-for-money checks or penalties for repeated failures which cost lives. And many major contracts have gone directly to key Tory donors and allies – without competition.
As COVID rates across the country surge, how can we hold our leaders accountable? Meet the lawyers, journalists and politicians leading the charge in our free live discussion on Thursday 1 October at 5pm UK time.
Hear from:
Dawn Butler Labour MP for Brent Central and member of the House of Commons Committee on Science and Technology
Peter Geoghegan Investigations editor, openDemocracy, and author of 'Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics'
Jolyon Maugham Barrister and founder of the Good Law Project.
Peter Smith Procurement expert and author of 'Bad Buying: How Organisations Waste Billions through Failures, Frauds and F*ck-ups'
Chair: Mary Fitzgerald Editor-in-chief of openDemocracy
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