by Keith Locke
Green MP Keith Locke at a protest outside the Iranian Embassy on Friday 12 February 2010
Iran has shown once again how authoritarian governments are scared of the internet. The regime has just announced it is cutting off access to Google’s email services. This follows big protests in Iran last week on the 31st anniversary of the 1979 revolution. I participated in the protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Wellington last Friday, pictures of which are on my Facebook page. I was impressed with the spirit of the protesters, most of whom had travelled on an overnight bus from Auckland. The singing and chanting went on for hours.
In their leaflet, the protesters made a distinction between the 1979 revolution: “a left-leaning revolution against the Shah and for peace and prosperity” and the current Islamic regime, which they believe ‘crushed’ the revolution.
They were particularly upset at the execution of Iranian dissidents. Two young men, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were executed on 28 January for the ‘crime’ of ‘enmity against god’. For more information see their website: www.iransolidarity.org.uk
Of course, the regime tries to portray the democratic movement as a tool of the West, which is a big rich in that almost all Iranians are critical of Western support for Israel and the imposition of sanctions on their country.
Published in Featured | Justice & Democracy by Keith Locke on Mon, February 15th, 2010
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Now is not the time for the US to talk about missile strikes or invading and give the regime an external threat to distract the Iranian people away from change.
I am concerned that last year reports were that Iran was 5-10 years away from a Bomb and without an effective delivery system now they are an international threat
More phantom WMDs ?
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Great post. Just might want to do a quick spellcheck.
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It isn’t just Iran that wants to censor the Internet. Apparently the Department of Internal Affairs wants to do the same, here, within a few months (see this and this).
The filter will apparently be optional for ISPs, but will be implemented by the biggest ISPs, so affect the majority of the users. All taxpayers will pay for this filtering.
DIA may claim that they will only censor ‘illegal material’, but when such systems are put into place, there is no process to ensure that the net of censorship doesn’t get broader. In fact, the list of censored sites is secret, and therefore the DIA is unaccountable – and subject to interference by the executive to block content that embarrases the government.
I think it is important that we ackowledge that National is not yet be as authoritarian as the Iranian government, but at the same time, realise that National (and Labour) seem to be deliberately steering a course towards authoritarianism, and that if we don’t stand up against measures like this, it won’t be long before our civil and political rights are curtailed to a similar extent to what they are in Iran.
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How can you possibly even think of comparing the NZ govt to that of the Oppressive regime in place in Iran at the present time @A1kmm, NZ will never be in that situation because we have basic civil liberities in place through the common law, something that has never existed in Iran and the simple fact that the NZ armed forces would never allow themselves to be trained in such a manner to repress the rest of the population . While there is the odd Overzealous Police officer NZ is generally speaking an incredibly free and democratic nation.
the only internet censorship ever likely to occur in NZ is further site banning on sites that hold Child pornography and other such Materials that NZ does not want , need or should have, if that is an incredibly authoritarian action then I guess we are under a brutal tyrannical dictatorship :p
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