The more that I read about this, the more I get the feeling that there were specific political reasons to target this individual. I don't know how a country like Iran would even know he developed some software. He probably was outspoken against the regime.
It could also be a specific political reason to target somebody. Perhaps he did not do much on his own, but he represents the foreign internet, which Iran wants to remove from their country. They might just want to start scaring their populace regarding the internet before replacing it with a country-wide network.
I have some Iranian friends here in Canada. A year or two ago they signed a petition calling for the release of this man. They are now on a list entitled "Enemies of Islam" and have heard through the grapevine of Iranian officials asking people to find dirt on them. These people are insane.
It is written here that he was a developer and an author of the largest Iranian pornographic websites. (I cannot believe it because according to Persian Wikipedia , he studied in the best University of Technology in Iran called Sharif University which means that he could get fund from any University in the world to continue his studies and that was what he did , He traveled to Canada to study in the Victoria university but when he heard that his father is sick he went back to Iran to see his father but the Iranian Cyber arrested him)
His wife claimed that he just developed a software which he didn't know about where it was about to used. And as usual that a developer put his name in a file inside the software package he wrote his name in a file without the knowledge of where its going to be used.
The "confession" [1] was posted to vimeo.com. The claim is that he operated under the pseudonym "Siavash Hosseinkhani" (apparently the operator of a avizoon.org) [2]
He was kept in solitary for 1 year in Evin prison and tortured. Use your imagination...[see 4,8]
And he is not the only one from Aryamehr University of Technology (now called Sharif by IRI) currently held by Islamic Republic of Iran. Omid Kokabee[3][4][5], a young physicist (just look at him; he is one us, a geek) is also currently held in IRI dungeons.
It is a terror regime that terrorizes its own citizens. Plain and simple. [6]
All this talk about nuclear program, etc., while for 30+ years the West and East have been /quite happily/ under the table doing business with this gang. It is business. The rest that we get to see is show business. They could have been toppled years ago. Even today, they push just enough to get business concessions, then they back track.[7]
I'm an Iranian developer living in the UK , I heard he was arrested because of developing Iranian porn website.
I'm not sure about it , but this is what I heard in the news while I was In Iran.
check this blog for more info:
http://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/
Because of your background, maybe you can answer a question for me. Why is it that Iranians living abroad choose to keep returning to their homeland when they know that it could lead to false imprisonment/execution? Is it due to family members who still remain in Iran or is it because you feel that the risk to your own personal safety is relatively low?
The reason I ask is because most of the people who have been getting arrested seem to be people of Iranian descent who chose to move to another country. Recently a former U.S. Soldier of Iranian descent was also sentenced to die; all he did was return home to visit his grandmother.
According to what I have seen , most people go back to Iran to meet their family .
But Iranian regime put pressure on families of people which they are active against Iran, in foreign countries to force them to go back to Iran , then they can arrest them and torture them and some times that you may have seen in the news Kill them.
I think the same has happened to this developer.
I remember there was a time which most of my friends were arrested , just because they were really active on the web (on any subject even computing and network not just political activity)
> The reason I ask is because most of the people who have been getting arrested seem to be people of Iranian descent who chose to move to another country.
Or are those just the ones you hear about? The article suggests there have been 53 executions this year in Iran. That's 2.5 executions per day.
And those other 3 guys arrested a year ago were just "hiking". Because that's what people from 10,000 miles away normally do for fun: hike in the Iran-Iraq borders.
TL;DR: don't believe everything you read in the papers/net, Iranian or otherwise.
Maybe. This, though, makes using hiking as an excuse even better as a cover for a spying operation. Because it is far-fetched, but not so far-fetched as to actually be impossible.
Thus, the point remains: read everything with huge doses of salt.
Especially in periods where a state is preparing for some new war, and its officials and its media have shown during the last two wars that they are willing to lie to the public to turn the war engine on.
Well I do know one thing, being a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent visiting your grandmother is probably the worst cover in the history of espionage.
While a bunch of Americans taking a hike on the Iraq-Iran border is one of the dumbest things to happen in recent history, It isn't beyond the realm of believability. Einstein once said that human ignorance is the only thing that is known for sure to be eternal; this incident was merely another example of this principle. If those kids were really guilty of espionage, I don't think that Iran would have released them at any cost.
Well, visiting your grandmother could be "the worst cover in the history of espionage", but we are used to be fed with tired bad covers. Like the whole hoopla about WMD and Saddam.
This means that one cannot anymore trust something that looks like a total amateur lie to NOT be a lie, thinking that "if they wanted to lie they would have found a better excuse", since they don't really seem to bother anymore.
(Surprisingly, the reverse is also problematic. That is, even if the politicians bothered to only use perfectly crafted covers, then a cover such as this would be good, because of the public thinking "surely, they are not as dumb to use such a crappy cover, so it must be true" effect).
