The former lawmaker, Ali Shakouri-rad, is a reformist. Derakhshan was once a reformist journalist, but then became a government supporter. Some charge that Derakhshan provided evidence against fellow journalists and bloggers.
Derakhshan previously lived in Canada and holds Canadian citizenship. He is known as the “blogfather” for helping to popularize blogs in Iran by writing a Farsi guide on how to organize them. He was arrested in November 2008 after returning to Iran and sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison over his writings and a trip to Israel.
Shakouri-rad was arrested last year on charges of spreading lies and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, but subsequently freed.
Radio Farda reports that he has written in his blog that he shared a cell for several weeks with Derakhshan. Shakouri-rad says Derakhshan asked Shakouri-rad to write about him upon his release to change the views of those who might have misjudged him.
Shakouri-rad writes that Derakhshan remains a supporter of Iranian President Ahmadi-nejad:
“He [Derakhshan] had lived outside the country for many years and had distanced himself from religion, but with the coming to power of Ahmadi-nejad and because of his anti-US stances, [Derakhshan] gradually became his supporter. He then returned to Iran and now also approves of Ahmadi-nejad’s domestic policies.
“I was in that [cell] with him for a month,” Shakouri-rad reports. “It was an interesting experience maybe for both of us, who are from two different generations with very different views. He believes the Iranian establishment has many supporters around the world who are not religious; he believes being religious is not necessary for supporting this establishment. He believes that is also applicable inside the country and the establishment should not deprive itself of such supporters.
“He has returned to religion and performs the prayers. He shared a cell for a short time with Hamzeh Ghalebi, the person in charge of the student election headquarters of [opposition leader Mir-Hossain Musavi], and he was happy that he could again share his views with a reformist. He was suffering from the fact that he couldn’t serve Ahmadi-nejad’s government and the Iranian establishment in jail and he considered his jailing a foolish matter,” Shakouri-rad wrote.