This article in the Seattle Times from Dec 8 provides fuller info and some clarification. Apparently it is possible to obtain an exemption via one's literary agent and publisher applying for a license to engage in the business of turning a manuscript into a published work. So in that sense, the regulations aren't quite as draconian as they initially appeared, although we are dealing with licensing speech, which is generally frowned upon in US law (she says in her mildest understatement).
According to the article, however, the situation is almost worse than originally presented. Treasury has for all intents and purposes overruled a legislative provision enacted several years ago to exempt publications from the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act. The system Treasury has come up with sounds like a catch-22 for political dissidents worthy of both Yosarian and the Red Queen. (HT folkbum at LiberalStreetFighter.com)
Not an update exactly. But related.
The position of the US government on Iranian authors is especially repugnant in light of the situation in which dissident authors, especially journalists, are finding themselves today in Iran. US attempts to isolate the regime through restricting flow of information and ideas are unlikely to have any effect on the mullahs, will deny Americans the ability to understand and support those opposing the regime, and as often as not wind up limiting our ability to help them.
Iranian woman journalist freed on bail, hospitalisedTo follow up on the "confessions," from AFP Dec 14:
TEHERAN (AFP) Dec 11 An Iranian woman arrested in a judicial crackdown on reformist journalists was freed on bail but needed hospital treatment due to her detention, her husband told AFP on Saturday.
According to Ahmad Beigloo, journalist Fereshteh Ghazi “was kept in solitary confinement for 38 days and had to be checked into hospital as she was not in a good physical or mental shape”.
The woman was arrested over her articles on women’s rights published on Internet sites. She was released on bail of 500 million rials (about 57,000 dollars).
In recent months, Iran’s hardline judiciary has arrested a number of pro-reform journalists accused of publishing propaganda against the regime, acting against national security, disturbing public opinion and insulting religious sanctities.
Four jailed reformist journalists, three of them recently released, have written letters of repentance, saying they were ”brainwashed” by foreigners and “counter-revolutionaries”.
Two weeks ago the European Union lodged a formal protest with Iranian authorities over the arrest and harassment of journalists, staff of non-governmental organizations and members of religious minorities.
Iran’s reformist government admitted yesterday that it was concerned over how the hardline judiciary managed to exact written apologies and confessions from several detained dissident journalists.Just because the neanderthal judiciary and their goons are beneath despicable doesn't mean we should punish Iranian authors. Nor, I should add, is it causus belli for going to war against those same neanderthals.
“People making statements that go against their convictions cannot win the confidence of public opinion and raise questions,” government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told journalists.
The first afoe European weblog awards