The Impact of Iran’s Telegram Ban
The Iranian Regime blocked popular messaging app Telegram on May 1, citing its role in allowing the Iranian people to communicate with each other and the outside world during the Iran uprising, which began in December 2017, but this incredible act of censorship by the mullahs has not exactly warmed people towards them. In fact, given the disruption that the Telegram ban has caused, especially to those who used it for business, unrest among the Iranian people has only grown.
At the time when the Regime blocked Telegram, the app had over 40 million active users in Iran – that’s roughly half the population – and Iranians are using it for everything from personal communications to healthcare, education, business, and anything that you might need to use a secure messaging app for. The ban has caused chaos, including disrupting the Iranian economy, which was already in a shaky position because of the actions of the mullahs.
A new report, has uncovered the impact that this ban and the Regime’s censorship of the internet as a whole has had on Iranians from all walks of life and all across the political spectrum. Let’s look at some of the key findings of that report:
• The Telegram ban is an attempt to cut Iranian people off from their principal method of communication, which is not controlled or censored by the state.
• Many tech-savvy Iranians will use circumvention tools to access the app, but many others will lose access or be forced to use the Regime built apps that track communications and censor content.
• The ban will erode economic and social rights, given how deeply integrated it is in everyday life.
• Financial hardship caused by the ban will put the economy under more strain and cause more protests, leading to a bigger and more brutal crackdown
• The ban shows how regime’s President Hassan Rouhani, who publicly opposed the ban but did not act to stop it, is increasingly irrelevant.
• Rouhani’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology tried to block access to circumvention tools, which shows that he may not actually oppose the ban.
Human rights under the Iranian Regime are basically non-existent, but there is no point in waiting for the Regime to change. The only way to provide human rights to the people of Iran is by supporting their call for regime change.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has organised a Free Iran gathering in Paris on June 30, where regime change will be the main discussion topic.
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