Long-time Winds of Change readers will remember colleague/contributor Hossein Derakshan, the father of the Iranian blogosphere, who is noted in the column to your right.

It occurs to me that while I was away, you may not have been updated about this:

"Mr. Derakhshan, 35, is widely known by his online name "Hoder." He was born in Iran, but moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen in early adulthood. He is a staunch advocate of free expression in Iran, and became known as the "blogfather" of Iran's on-line community for training pro-democracy advocates to blog and podcast in the late nineties. Later, he apologized for his dissenting views, and emerged as an unlikely supporter of the regime, at one point comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a modern-day Che Guevara.

So when the Iranian government invited him to travel to Iran in 2008, he accepted, thinking he would help his country reach out to the world, according to friends and family. Upon his arrival, however, another branch of the government arrested him.

On Tuesday, he was convicted of insulting Islamic thought and religious figures, managing obscene websites and co-operating with "enemy states" because he visited Israel five years ago...."

He has been sentenced to 19.5 years in prison.

Hoder's attempt to find a locus of collaboration with the Islamic regime dilutes his status as a prisoner of conscience, but does not erase it. Or touch the legacy he leaves. He remains in my thoughts - and I hope, in yours.