Facebook available in Persian

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 19 (UPI) -- Facebook has released a beta version in Persian of its entire site, the social networking Internet site based in Cambridge, Mass., announced.

"Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath," Eric Kwan, a Facebook engineer working to translate the site, posted Thursday. "Much of the content created and shared has been in Persian -- the native language of Iran -- but people have had to navigate the site in English or other languages."

The change means "Persian speakers inside of Iran and around the world can begin using it in their native language," Kwan said.

Protests have been happening daily since the June 12 election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide winner over his nearest challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, prompting cries of ballot fraud. The Iranian government has cracked down on media coverage of opposition rallies, and installed firewalls to hamper or block access to Internet social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.

He said development of the Persian version wouldn't have happened so quickly "without the more than 400 Persian speakers who submitted thousands of individual translations of the site."