Khalaji v. Derakhshan (Letter) [1]

On July 27, 2007, Khalaji's lawyers sent a letter to Derkhshan, his domain registrar (GoDaddy), and his hosting service (Hosting Matters, Inc). According to the letter, Derakhshan's posts alleged that Khalaji was working for a right wing think tank that openly supported the policy of 'regime change" in Iran and was "giving ideas to the cruelest and dirtiest enemies of Iran and humanity." The letter also took issue with a claim that Khalaji was "the only Iranian who has worked for both Khameni's office and Dick Cheney's, who intends to bomb Khalaji's former office building plus thousands of men, women and children living in the surrounding area." Derakhshan disputes the accuracy of Khalaji's translations of these statements.

As well as demanding that the hosting company and domain registrar take down the defamatory statements, Khalaji sought an apology and $10,000 in settlement. After a lengthy back-and-forth between Derakhshan and Hosting Matters about what material Derakhshan would take down from his blogs, Hosting Matters terminated Derakhshan's accounts in August 2007. Days later, Derakhshan's blogs were back online with a different hosting service, 1&1 Internet, apparently with the disputed posts still in place.

Khalaji filed a lawsuit against Derakhshan in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in October 2007. (For more information, please see the CMLP's database entry, Khalaji v. Derakhshan [3].)