(EFD – Iran Monitor) In an open letter to the “revolutionary Iranian people”, the Pasdaran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, announced their fight against the “activities of organised destructive networks in cyberspace”. The Pasdaran also claimed that the aim of the network operators is to lead Iranian youth astray and that they had been encouraged and financially supported by the “largest foreign companies and small terrorist groups and by the counterrevolution”. The focus of criticism is not simply Iranian hardcore pornographic films, but rather those internet operators that “pursue the diabolical objectives of the enemies of the Islamic Revolution” and that , according to the Pasdaran, are “endangering Iran’s general security”. Some of these networks have apparently been “identified and destroyed” using the “intelligent and resolute” measures of the Pasdaran’s information departments.Although the flag of the Revolutionary Guards features a fist holding a machine gun, and the outline of the globe in the background, they are now using sophisticated techniques for conducting their operations against “internet enemies”. They say they have founded a “centre for investigating crime in cyberspace”, which fights “anti-cultural and counterrevolutionary networks”.
Interestingly, the term “counterrevolutionary” derives from Communist state ideology. Terms like “anti-cultural” or “anti-values” are in fact neologisms created by Islamist ideology, but they show the extent of the totalitarian delusion. What is permitted is not a pluralism of values, but instead an Islamist interpretation of what counts as true values. And what are the consequences of all this? If a woman does not want to wear a headscarf, if a young man wants to wear T-shirts in the hot summer, if a Christian priest wants to talk openly with Muslims and non-Muslims in Farsi about his faith, if a Muslim does not want to accept the Shiite state clergy’s absolute will to dominate and has a different notion of Islam, if a Bahai believes in a revelation of God who in his view appeared after Mohammed, if an Iranian Jew wishes to travel to Israel in freedom and return to his home in Iran again – all these people, according to the regime, represent “anti-values” and are behaving “anti-culturally” thus representing a threat to the State.
But will the dictatorship be able to win also against Iranian exiles’ satellite broadcasters that are sometimes identified as operators of a velvet revolution? On 18 March the Human Rights Activists organisation reported that the blogger Omid Mirsajafi died in prison for lack of medical treatment. Before he was arrested, Mirsajafi stressed in an interview, that he was only writing about art and culture in his blog. Nevertheless, he was accused of “insulting the sanctuaries of Islam” and arrested. While one among the most peaceful dissenters is consigned to prison, the “central hub” of the dictatorship, in cyberspace it will be impossible to execute dissenters, not even with the aid of the state-of-the-art filtering systems that Iran has bought from China.
[Source: http://europeandemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13413&catid=4&Itemid=22]
April 21, 2009 2:00 pm
Dictatorships exist because we (people) allow it to exist. The moment people become UNTIED against dictatorship, it will vanish. Lets UNITE
April 21, 2009 6:55 pm
This is in reference to filtering software. There will always be hackers that are one step ahead of the software. I have received phone calls from bankers concerned about identity theft, and this has to do with hackers and my own security. Now opinions may differ, but I am happy banks are doing this so someone doesn’t steal my meager savings. They are doing this for my protection.
Now lets turn an about face to how Iran is trying to stifle the freedom of conscience every way it can. It will be human nature for some brave and clever soul to hack away at those controls and get news and views from outside of Iran. And they may stay so far ahead of the government censors that information will filter into Iran despite attempted governmental controls.
The world is certainly a lot smaller than it was even a century ago. Diverse news and views travel the world within minutes instead of years, and because of the present nature of worldwide human interaction, it is less possible for insular government policies to possibly succeed.
April 22, 2009 3:17 pm
Irani, I agree with what you say. Remember that Khomeini and his co-conspirators had initially poisoned the minds of Iranians trying to preach that the new Islamic Republic would be a totally democratic society with free speech and tolerance. How incredible is this farce that it leaves me absolutley speechless!
April 22, 2009 11:32 pm
Aya Ali Khamanei failed in his attempts to prevent the satellite station from beaming into Iran. Now he thinks he can prevent the Ethernet transmissions from crossing in and out of Iran.
He just doesn’t get it that he can’t continue to kill the people of Iran to keep his ship from sinking, without the world finding out about it.
April 23, 2009 6:09 pm
Freedom’s rise in the world is a rising, flooding ocean, It rises above the walls and windows of the house, and no wall can stand in its way. The ocean cometh, and it washeth.
April 24, 2009 2:13 pm
For those of us old enough to remember a world without hyper-connectivity and for those of us who would be lost without it, consider these words of Shoghi Effendi in 1936:
“A mechanism of world intercommunication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity.”
My understanding is that Shoghi Effendi made this prediction based upon Writings from The Bab. I refer to this because the internet is for the most part “freed from national hindrances”, perhaps to the chagrin of the enemies of freedom. Its phenomenon is exactly like Barmak’s description of a glorius tide of boundless freedom, rising with waves of sweeping knowledge.
April 24, 2009 2:14 pm
For those of us old enough to remember a world without hyper-connectivity and for those of us who would be lost without it, consider these words of Shoghi Effendi in 1936:
“A mechanism of world intercommunication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity.”
My understanding is that Shoghi Effendi made this prediction based upon Writings from The Bab. I refer to this because the internet is for the most part “freed from national hindrances”, perhaps to the chagrin of the enemies of freedom. Its phenomenon is exactly like Barmak’s description of a glorious tide of boundless freedom, rising with waves of sweeping knowledge.