Iranians express opinions online on Ahmadinejad visit

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times Sunday, Tom Parker, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, writes that despite harassment and intimidation, young Iranians are using blogs as a source of debate, and that these blogs provide valuable insight into popular opinion inside the country.

Bloggers expressed their feelings about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York last week.

One blogger notes that: “In response to the question ‘Are you willing to have a dialogue with America and what do you expect?’ after some explanations, he [Ahmadinejad] said, ‘We think that America can be a good friend for Iran.” He repeated the sentence and the phrase “good friend” one more time to show that it did not slip out accidentally.”

Another blog discusses how none of the channels in Iran broadcast Ahmadinejad’s speech live, while several American channels did. The blogger writes: “What is interesting is that we claim the Americans want to prevent our voice from being heard, so why do we censor ourselves?”

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