Iran’s regime has
spent at least $4.5 billion to build a domestic intranet that would further
tighten restrictions on everyday Iranians’ internet access.
The regime has long blocked thousands of web sites. Now the
government is seeking greater control over content through a project, started as
early as 2005, known as the National Information Network (NIN), according to
Radio Farda.
The domestic intranet would block data requests from going
outside the country and allow the government to censor content.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo is
encouraging U.S. and international technology companies to
improve the free flow of information to the Iranian people,
noting the regime blocked the internet to hide atrocities in November 2019.
“In an effort to hide evidence
of the regime’s abuses against its own people, Iran imposed
a near-total shutdown of access to the global internet last November, placing
nearly all of its 80 million people in digital darkness for a week while
security forces killed as many as 1,500 people and arbitrarily detained
thousands more,” Pompeo said in a May 20 statement.
Protests against gas price
increases erupted November 15, 2019, but quickly shifted to target the regime’s
mismanagement. The internet shutdown that followed cost Iran’s economy
an estimated $300 million, according to NetBlocks, which monitors internet
freedom worldwide.
All mobile networks were
disconnected and NetBlocks recorded only 5 percent of normal connectivity.
But citizens still could access the state-run intranet.
President Hassan
Rouhani has said a completed NIN will preclude the need for
foreign networks. The regime planned to complete the NIN by 2016 but failed to
meet that goal. Iran’s government is offering citizens
financial incentives to use the NIN instead of the internet.
Despite frequent service
interruptions, Iranians circumvent the regime’s
internet censorship, using anonymous browsers and virtual private networks
(VPNs). VPNs would be blocked under the new intranet, Radio Farda says.
The U.S. government
supports the right of the Iranian people to the free
flow of information through its policies, such as the U.S. Treasury
Department’s General License D1, which facilitates use of personal
communications services.
In its November 2019 Freedom on the Net report, issued a
week before the Iranian regime’s internet blackout, Freedom
House ranked Iran last in the Middle East in internet freedom. Among 67 countries
evaluated, only
China ranked lower in internet freedom than Iran. The ranking was
based on access, content limits and violations of users’ rights.
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