Internet, a Scourge to the Iran Regime
- Monday, 12 December 2016 10:32
NCRI - The increased tendency among people, especially youth, towards social networks has now turned into a security crisis for the Iranian regime.
According to figures, despite regime’s measures to censor, filter and control the internet, nearly 22 million Iranians have joined the Telegram social network alone.
In this regard, the Iranian state website ‘Hamshahri’ reported on 15 August 2015 on the latest number of Iran’s internet users. “If Iran’s population is assumed to be 75 million, the latest studies show that nearly 55.5 million people are internet users while 37.5 million have an internet subscription. The ADSL penetration rate has reached 20.72 percent, whereas the mobile internet has the highest share of internet connections with a penetration rate of 31.83 percent, accounting for nearly 24 million users”, according to the website.
Undoubtedly, the increase in the number of internet users which is directly related to the amount of regime’s repression and suffocation, can by no means be harnessed by regime’s oppressive bodies. The more the internet users are put under pressure by regime’s judiciary and security forces, the more people turn to online sources, especially those belonging to Iran’s resistance and PMOI. And by such measures the regime has only one objective in mind, to prevent people from having access to reliable and free information.
If we take a look at the government figures, we will find out well that the issue of ‘the internet vs. the Iranian regime’ is reminiscent of the old story ‘The Goblin vs. In The Name of God’.
As acknowledged by regime’s Attorney General in this regard, “unfortunately, the cyberspace is being used by many foreign (intellectual) currents as a path to hit the system. The enemy is taking advantage of the internet to inflict on us various types of social harms, including blasphemy (insulting Mullahs). A soft war has been waged against us in this regard (Terrorist Quds Force’s Tasnim news agency, December 7, 2016)
Mullah Mohammad Jafari then acknowledges regime’s oppressive policies regarding widespread censorship of the internet and social networks and adds: “considering the Attorney General’s responsibility, there is a close relationship with the Cyber Police with regard to the internet, so that 13-14 thousand websites are blocked each week due to violations.”
The fact is that many internet service providers refuse any kind of collaboration with the Iranian regime to transfer their servers to Iran, as deploying the servers in Iran means allowing the regime’s oppressive security and intelligence bodies to have access to users’ identities as well as a collection of other information available on social networks. The last instance in this regard relates to the popular Telegram social network, which has refused to have any kind of collaboration with the Iranian regime.
While helplessly complaining about this fact, regime’s Attorney General says that: “one of the reasons for (regime’s) inability to cope with the social networks is that their servers are not located in Iran.” These statements are translated into failure of regime’s policies and huge investments to deal with an increasing number of social network users, who in addition to challenging the whole system, have now turned into important sources of information from inside the country.
