* Which children of the revolution?

Thursday night (25 Feb) Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF) -- a UK charity -- is hosting an event on the future of Iran's "children of the revolution" at the Royal Geographical Society in London. Stars of the show are the Islamic Republic-friendly English writer Christopher de Bellaigue and Ali Ansari, an Islamic Repubic-friendly political scientist (one foreigner, one Iranian Brit, both with questionable connection to under-25s. The future looks bright!).

IHF is after all an Islamic Republic-friendly charity, run by the super-rich. It is unlikely that tonight that there will be any mention of Arash Cigarchi. As of this week, Cigarchi can look forward to 14 years in prison, for writing a weblog. The Islamic killers who run our country are threatened by a lad who if Google serves me right was born in 1979, the year of the revolution. At 25 or 26 he's around eight years younger than me. When he leaves he will be six years older than I am now. By that time he will have had his youth demolished. The youth whose discontent the Islamic-terrorist system has nourished for 25 years, is locked up for expressing it.

If Bellaigue and Ansari tonight mention the issue of imprisonment and torture of dissenting youth, and slam the Islamic government I might apologise for doubting their integrity. But if as I suspect they will not, at their next outing Chris and Ali wear your turbans.

-- Peyvand Khorsandi / Iranian Times

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Iran: Blogger Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison

" The Iranian government is sending a message to its critics: keep silent or face years in prison. "
Widney Brown,
deputy program director of Human Rights Watch