Smash hit

Unsurprisingly, however, in recent days, many Iranian bloggers are writing about the student-led demonstrations and street violence in Tehran.

LadySun tells of a raid last weekend on a student dormitory by Islamic vigilantes who struck like a "thunderstorm" in the night as students slept. The protests were now declining, she said.

"Dormitories are evacuated and in ruins. Examinations are suspended. Students are wounded, not only physically, but very much emotionally and mentally."

The entry reflects widespread feelings of frustration over the political deadlock that is holding back change in Iran. No-one is spared LadySun's criticism.

She lambasts monarchists who "ramble about a new revolution" and lashes out at "this stupid Bush" who has "no idea what kind of people Iranians are" yet releases statements in support of the students.

She hates the "pressure groups", Islamic vigilantes who use violence to suppress the protests and is fed up with the reformist camp she sees as powerless to tackle "all this chaos". And, she continues, "I hate all the students, including myself, who can do nothing."

Plaintively, she concludes: "If only they knew how small the amount of freedom we are seeking is..."

It remains unclear how far the old guard, challenged at home by demonstrations and abroad by hostile American rhetoric, will move to restrict internet use as it has done foreign satellite channels that have called for anti-Government protests.

An internet boom in Iran has seen the number of users soar by 90 per cent in the past year, with about three million users in a population of 65 million, half of them aged under 25. Some 15 million are expected to be online within the next three or four years.

Iran's hardline judiciary, which has banned scores of reformist publications, was said last month to have established a special department to investigate and prosecute internet offences in line with the strict laws that cover the country's media.

Access to "immoral" sites as well as political sites that "rudely make fun of religious and political figures in the country", was to be blocked.

Newspapers in March reported that 70 youngsters were arrested for meeting through an illegal online dating site, suggesting the authorities had monitored a chat room they used.

A month later an Iranian journalist who wrote for a reformist newspaper that was closed became the first blogger to be arrested. He was freed three weeks later but faces undisclosed charges. It was a worrying precedent in what had previously been a tolerant approach to Iran's enthusiastic bloggers. Many believe that as a high profile blogger who used his own name, he was chosen to set an example.

When internet cafes first became popular four years ago, Islamic conservatives saw the web as the West's latest hi-tech weapon in its no-holds barred assault on Islamic values.

One ayatollah railed that pictures that "threaten all of humanity and chastity" could now hurtle down phone lines at the speed of light

But Mohammad Khatami, the reformist president, argued that keeping abreast of information technology was essential if Iran's relationship with the West was to develop on an equal footing.

So far, the old guard's recent curbs on the internet have targeted political sites rather than blogs, experts said, and many appear confident any crackdown will be limited. "For sure it won't last too long," another woman blogger wrote recently. "Their time is over."

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