Omid-Reza Mirsayafi, R. I. P.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported an announcement by Iran’s official news agency announced that the Islamic Republic had crushed a network of allegedly anti-religious websites. The LAT also noted, in passing, that on the same day, Omid-Reza Mirsayafi, had expired in an Iranian jail. Mirsayafi was a young blogger serving time for having "insulted authorities" on his website.

The Persian news agency described the government's successful crushing of a network of websites which had been,

... insulting religious sanctities and desecrating religious beliefs, insulting the Holy Koran and the innocent imams, promoting very deep ethical deviations in individuals and family members, advertising prostitution of Iranian girls, breaking the privacy of individuals, preparing hidden films and encouraging Iranian users to produce obscene and anti-religious contents.

The Times appropriately took this occasion of Mirsayafi's death from torture to remind it's readers that Reporters Without Borders had included the so-called Islamic Republic in a list of the 12 most egregious Enemies of the Internet:

- Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam - have all transformed their Internet into an Intranet in order to prevent their population from accessing ‘undesirable’ online information. . . . All these countries distinguish themselves not only by their ability to censor online news and information but also by their virtually systematic persecution of troublesome Internet users. . . .

The careful reader might have noticed I did not provide a link to support my assertion that Mirsayafi had been tortured to death.

That is because I am applying Vigilante's Presumption of Official Guilt (VPOG). It is applicable wherever there is governmental censure and suppression of the Internet, media and press. Whenever and wherever access is denied and journalists are intimidated and persecuted, assume the worst imaginable is true. Torture is sanctioned.

Ask only of governments if they have nothing to hide, why do they hide everything?