All Content Related to Iran

Iran

evan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:02:32 -0400

Background

Speech in the Islamic Republic of Iran is heavily regulated. The limits to freedom of expression in Iran are grounded in the constitution and speech restrictions extend over a broad range of topics, including religion, immorality, social harmony and politics. In comparison to the well developed state controls over print media, radio and television, the Internet initially offered a relatively unfettered medium for communication in Iran, allowing independent media and opposition voices to flourish.1 The Internet also has provided Iranian expatriates a platform for publishing opinions in opposition to the government, such as pro-secular and reformist political viewpoints, outside of the reach of standard offline strategies for enforcing speech restrictions. The growing popularity of the Internet has led to increasing government scrutiny. Dissenting voices online, including human rights activists, bloggers and online media outlets, have became the target of government regulatory action and are subject to arrest, imprisonment and torture.2 Internet control mechanisms have continued to grow in scope and scale to address this digital challenge to information control in Iran. Regulators have invested in more sophisticated technical control mechanisms, and new regulatory agencies have been created to identify and block expression deemed offensive. The presidential elections in 2009 led to an increase in online political organizing, which provided a further impetus for increasingly contentious controls on the Web sites used by legitimate opposition contenders.

Efforts to control online speech by the Iranian government have relied primarily on large-scale Internet filtering and the threat of targeted legal action. The declaration of a spokesman from the Revolutionary Guard to launch ten thousand blogs written by members of the Basij, a volunteer Iranian paramilitary force under the authority of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, hints at the adoption of a different strategy for shaping online information: a government-backed war of words on the Internet.3 This is similar conceptually to the government information dissemination strategies seen in just a small number of countries, for example, the fifty-cent army in China, where workers are reportedly paid for producing pro-government content, and in Russia, where pro-Kremlin bloggers are suspected of receiving government support.4

Internet in Iran

Internet usage in Iran continues to increase at a sharp rate. Over the past eight years, the number of Internet users in Iran has grown at an average annual rate of approximately 48 percent, increasing from under one million Internet users in 20005 to around 23 million in 2008.6 This rate of growth is higher than any other country in the Middle East. Internet users now account for approximately 35 percent of the population of Iran. This Internet penetration rate is considerably higher than the Middle East average of 26 percent.7

The Persian blogosphere has been heralded as one of the largest and most active in the world. The number of active Persian blogs is estimated to be approximately 60,000—a formidable number of independent voices for a country accustomed to tightly controlling the press.8

Iranian Internet policies reflect a strong tension between the regulatory urge to reign in free speech and the promotion of innovation and economic growth supported by expanding access to information and communication technologies (ICT). Bolstered by the strong growth in Internet penetration in Iran, Iran’s fourth Five-Year Development Plan called for enhanced broadband penetration with 1.5 million high-speed Internet connections nationwide.9 However, in October 2006, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MICT) issued an order that appears to have been designed to thwart household access to broadband Internet, forbidding ISPs from providing Internet connectivity to households and public Internet access points at speeds greater than 128 kilobytes per second. This policy, which restricts the ability of Internet users to download multimedia content, is likely intended to hinder access to online alternative media sources that might compete with the tightly controlled radio and television media in Iran.10

At the time of this order, approximately 250,000 users had access to high-speed Internet service, with demand continuing to grow.11 Over the prior two years, eleven companies had been licensed to provide such high-speed services and had invested significant capital in importing the required machinery and setting up the required infrastructure. These regulations on Internet access speed were met with intense opposition, including a campaign to overturn the policy by members of parliament.12 Reports at the time suggested that the restrictions would be lifted once more effective content control mechanisms were put into place. However, the ban on high-speed service for households and public access points remains in place, although universities and private businesses are able to obtain high-speed broadband service. Before this policy was enacted, fiber-optic networks had been expanding rapidly in Iran, more than doubling from 2005 to 2007.13 The growth of fiber-optic networks in Iran has since dropped off precipitously.14 Mohammad Soleimani, the Minister of Information and Communications, publicly defended the ceiling on access speeds, and indicated that slower speeds are adequate and that there is no demand for higher speeds.15 Iran is the only country in the world to have instituted an explicit cap on Internet access speed for households.

Efforts to gain control over the Internet were already underway in 2001, when the government of Iran asserted control over all Internet access points coming into the country.16 Commercial ISPs in Iran that offer Internet connectivity to the public are required to connect via the state-controlled Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI).17 ONI research corroborates that ISPs offering Internet service to the public all connect via TCI. The other international connections to the Internet are associated with research and academic organizations. Designing the Internet infrastructure around a government-managed gateway—rare for a country with this many Internet users—offers a central point of control that facilitates the implementation of Internet filtering and monitoring of Internet use.

Legal and regulatory frameworks

Speech regulation in Iran is rooted in its constitution, which declares that “the media should be used as a forum for healthy encounter of different ideas, but they must strictly refrain from diffusion and propagation of destructive and anti-Islamic practices.”18 Applying these principles to the Internet has proven to be difficult. A number of government regulatory initiatives have been launched over the past decade to assert control over online communications, although the legal status of Web sites and blogs continues to be contested.

The legal and institutional basis for the technical filtering system in Iran grew out of a series of decrees passed down by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCRC) in December 2001 that required ISPs to employ filtering systems.19 An inter-agency committee, the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Sites (CCDUS), was set up a year later to set criteria for identifying unauthorized Web sites to be blocked.20 This committee also decides on the blocking of specific domains. The SCRC issues guidelines to this committee and oversees committee members, which include representatives of MICT, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG), the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and the Tehran Prosecutor General.21

The implementation of the filtering decisions is charged to a filtering division within the Information Technology Company of Iran (ITC), an agency under MICT.22 Another agency, the Communication Infrastructure Company, has been given the task of unifying filtering across Iran.23

Iran has promoted the development of domestic tools and technical capacity to carry out Internet filtering in order to reduce its reliance of Western technologies. Prior ONI research reported the use of SmartFilter, a product of the United States based firm Secure Computing, for filtering Internet content.24 Secure Computing denied any knowledge of the use of their products in Iran.25 The use of Western technology was problematic both for the companies involved and for the Iranian government. For the companies, involvement in Internet censorship in Iran was a public relations liability, as they were viewed as contributing to the suppression of legitimate speech, if not breaking US law by violating trade sanctions against Iran. For the Iranian government, the reliance on Western technologies was seen as a source of weakness and a potential vulnerability to the integrity of the Iranian Internet. Some within Iran were concerned that Western software might include a ‘backdoor’ that would give outsiders access to key infrastructure.26

Several Iranian technology companies are now producing hardware and software products for use in the Iranian filtering system.27 Domestically produced technology is currently used for filtering. Iranian technology is also used for searching the Internet for objectionable content and tracking keywords and links to banned Web sites, which are used by filtering authorities to make blocking decisions.28 With the emergence of this domestic technical capacity, Iran joins China as the only countries that aggressively filter the Internet using their own technology.

The legal structures for enforcing speech restrictions in Iran are ambitious in their reach and offer authorities several alternatives for targeting objectionable speech and implementing the wide mandate to curtail a broad range of impermissible speech in Iran. Significant ambiguity in the statutes and directives used to regulate speech in Iran leaves the agencies charged with executing these laws with broad discretionary powers.

The Press Law of 1986 is the principle instrument for regulating media in Iran and frames the boundaries of permissible speech by media. This legislation is unusual in that it not only describes restricted speech but also lays out normative objectives for the press, who are required to “propagate and promote genuine Islamic culture and sound ethical principles.”29 The Press Law outlines broad restrictions on speech, including prohibitions on “promoting subjects that might damage the foundation of the Islamic Republic … offending the Leader of the Revolution … or quoting articles from the deviant press, parties or groups that oppose Islam (inside and outside the country) in such a manner as to propagate such ideas… or encouraging and instigating individuals and groups to act against the security, dignity and interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”30 Other provisions prohibit insulting Islam or senior religious authorities.31

The application of this law to Web sites and blogs in Iran has been contested. An amendment to the Press Law in 2000 appears to have brought electronic publications under the aegis of the law.32 In April 2009, another amendment to the Press Law was passed by the Iranian parliament that could facilitate the application of Press Law to online sources of content. The 2009 amendment stipulates that, “the rules stated in this Press Law apply to domestic news sites and domestic websites and set out their rights, responsibilities, legal protection, crimes, punishments, judicial authority and procedure for hearings.”33 This article, which was rejected a year and a half ago when proposed to the previous parliament, was reportedly passed this time with strong pressure from the Ahmadinejad government.34 Given the ambiguous wording of the April 2009 amendment to the Press Law, critics say that personal Web sites and blogs may also fall within the new definition, allowing greater scope for inhibiting freedom of expression on the Internet. The government claims that the law now applies to all “internet publications.”35

As applied to Web sites and blogs, the Press Law would not only subject online content to the comprehensive set of speech restrictions in the law, but would also require Web sites to obtain a license prior to publication. Bloggers and online media sources would also be subject to the regulatory authority of the Press Supervisory Board under the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance (MICG), which has the power to revoke licenses, ban publications, and refer complaints to a special Press Court.36

Internet “publications” that do not obtain a license under the Press Law, however, are subject to the stricter general laws of the Penal Code and come under the jurisdiction of the general courts. The Penal Code incorporates content-based crimes such as propaganda against the state and allows for the death penalty or imprisonment of up to five years for speech deemed to be an “insult to religion.”37 Additional punishable offenses include creating “anxiety and unease in the public’s mind,” spreading “false rumors,” or writing about “acts which are not true.” Another provision criminalizes criticism of state officials. Cases heard in the general courts do not have the benefit of a jury trial, which is used only in the Press courts, increasing the risk for those that opt not to register their Web site or blog.

Both supporters and critics of the 2009 amendment to the Press Law agree that implementing these new provisions is beyond the capacity of current regulatory agencies. Critics suspect that the proximity of the law’s approval to the 2009 elections was linked to the incumbent president’s desire to limit the influence of reformist candidates in cyberspace.38

Authorities in Iran have struggled for many years with the challenges of regulating speech on the Internet, complicated by the relative ease of anonymous speech online and access to content hosted outside of the country. ISPs and subscribers are subject to prohibitions on twenty types of activities, among which insulting Islam and religious leaders and institutions, as well as fomenting national discord and promoting drug use or obscenity and immoral behaviors, are prominent.39 In 2006, a directive of the SCRC declared Web sites and blogs that did not obtain a license from the MICG to be illegal.40 The MICG issued a notice in January 2007 requiring registration by March 1, 2007. A Telecommunications Ministry official, however, indicated that enforcement was not feasible.41 The number of blogs that have registered with the state is thought to be very low.42

Another key piece of legislation for regulating online content in Iran is the Bill of Cyber Crimes’ Sanctions (Cybercrimes Bill) ratified into law in November 2008. This bill was still under review by the Guardian Council at the time of writing.43 The bill requires ISPs to ensure that “forbidden” content is not displayed on their servers, that they immediately inform law enforcement agencies of violations, that they retain the content as evidence, and that they restrict access to the prohibited content.44 Under the Cybercrimes Bill, ISPs that do not abide by government regulations (including filtering regulations) will be fined, and with subsequent offenses temporarily or permanently suspended.45 The bill also includes provisions for the protection and disclosure of confidential data and information as well as the publishing of obscene content.46 A prior draft of the legislation included provisions that made ISPs criminally liable for content transmitted via their networks. These provisions have been removed from the latest draft of the Cybercrimes Bill.

The role of different government agencies in deciding on blocking, and the legality of doing so, has been a point of contention. The Internet Bureau of the Judiciary has issued mandates to ISPs to block Web sites through court orders, which are considered a form of lawful punishment imposed on legal entities.47 Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, who has led harsh crackdowns on media and has also been implicated in cases of torture of detainees, including twenty-one bloggers arrested in 2004, has also ordered that certain sites be censored.48

The legality of Iran’s filtering regime was brought into question following the blocking of the conservative online journal Baztab.com in February 2007. Baztab was made accessible inside Iran again after the Supreme Court of Iran ruled against the filtering of the Web site.49 This incident sparked a debate within Iranian legal and media circles over the authority of the CCDUS, and whether as an executive body of government it was improperly involved in making legislative or judicial decisions.50 This debate did not forestall the eventual closing of the offices of Baztab.51

Surveillance

Iran is reportedly investing in improving its technical capacity to extensively monitor the behavior of its citizens on the Internet. The routing of Internet traffic through proxy servers offers the potential for monitoring and logging essentially all unencrypted Web traffic, including e-mail, instant messaging and browsing. The architecture of the Iranian Internet is particularly conducive to widespread surveillance as all traffic from the dozens of ISPs serving households is routed through the state-controlled telecommunications infrastructure of TCI. The MICT, when announcing the creation of a centralized filtering system, indicated that they would keep a record of Web sites visited by users. A later statement denied that this infrastructure would be used for tracking browsing habits and identifying users.52

In 2008, two European companies reportedly sold a sophisticated electronic surveillance system capable of monitoring Internet use that could be utilized for tracking and monitoring the online activities of human rights organizations and political dissidents. TCI is said to have received the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between the Finnish cell phone maker and the German company Siemens.53 Women’s rights activists reported that they were shown transcripts of instant messaging sessions by authorities after their arrest, which, if true, would support the existence of an advanced surveillance program.54

ONI testing results

ONI conducted testing in 2008 and 2009 on five ISPs in Iran: ITC, Gostar, Parsonline, Datak and Sepanta. The testing results confirm that Iran has continued to consolidate its position as one of the most extensive filterers of the Internet. Iran consistently filters a broad range of Web sites that are offensive to the moral standards of Iran’s religious leadership. Internet censors in Iran have moved decisively against a number of political targets over the past two years, including women’s rights groups, human rights organizations and political opposition parties.

Filtering in Iran is implemented by routing all public Internet traffic through proxy servers. This allows the employment of filtering software to target specific Web pages as well as the blocking of keywords. The blocking of Web sites is carried out in a transparent manner in Iran; a blockpage is displayed to users that attempt to access a blocked site with a warning to users that they are not permitted to access a particular Web site. The blockpages, which vary by ISP, generally include a contact e-mail address for users that might wish to contact the filtering administrators to question or contest the blocking of a Web site.

A noteworthy recent development in Iran’s filtering regime is the implementation of a centralized filtering regime. Historically, there has been substantial variation in blocking across different ISPs, with several ISPs filtering fewer Web sites than TCI and thereby offering a more permissive view of the Internet.55 This variation in access to Web sites was the result of differences in the implementation of government filtering instructions by ISPs. This differential filtering practice has now been effectively replaced by a uniform filtering pattern with the implementation of the supplementary centralized filtering system. The vestiges of the ISP-based system, however, are still apparent: the source of filtering is evident by the blockpage that appears, which in some cases comes from the respective ISPs and in other cases from a standard blockpage issued by TCI. It is unclear what the long-term structure of the filtering system will be. Options include continuing with the current dual location filtering system or switching to either a system in which all filtering is carried out at a central point or to a distributed but centrally coordinated filtering system. Regardless of the method chosen for implementation, it appears that Iran is firmly on the path towards a centralized filtering system under the control of the government, as carried out in Saudi Arabia, for example.

The Iranian filtering system continues to strengthen and deepen. In addition to targeting “immoral” content on the Internet, independent and dissenting voices are filtered across a range of issues, including political reform, criticism of the government, reporting on human rights issues, and minority and women’s rights. A notable change in the scope of filtering in Iran over the past several years has been an expansion of political filtering and blocking of human rights organizations, particularly targeting the women’s rights movement in Iran. Blocking orders issued by CCDUS in May 2008 added many new Web sites to the blocking lists. This included numerous Web sites and blogs of women’s rights and human rights activists in addition to several well-known journalists, including www.roozmaregiha2.blogfa.com and pargas1.blogfa.com. Women’s rights Web sites in Farsi, such as www.we-change.org and feministschool.com, are consistently blocked in Iran.

A prominent and recent example of targeted political filtering is the blocking in February 2009 of www.yaarinews.ir, a Web site created for the planned election campaign of former president Mohammad Khatami. A Web site of the reformist coalition, www.baharestaniran.com, was blocked in March 2008. The blocking of Facebook in May 2009 has proven to be particularly controversial in Iran. Many believe that supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were behind the blocking orders, as a Reformist candidate for president, Mir Hossein Mousavi, had been using Facebook for political organizing.56 Ahmadinejad has since denied any involvement in the decision to block Facebook.57 The blocking of the popular social network Web site was reversed several days later after strong popular opposition to the blocking in Iran,58 but the site, along with the sites of major opposition candidates and several pro-reform sites, was blocked again during the June 2009 presidential elections.59 Facebook had been blocked in the past: ONI testing showed that it was blocked in fall 2008, with access to the Web site allowed again in February 2009.60

The role of speech restrictions in the political realm are also evident in the guidelines passed down from SCRC to CCDUS in April 2009 that define allowable speech during the 2009 presidential elections for Web sites and ISPs. These guidelines outlined twenty categories of prohibited speech, including “disrupting national unity” and “creating negative feelings forwards the Islamic government.”61

Independent media Web sites offered only in English are inconsistently blocked, though a number of prominent Western news Web sites have been blocked in Iran. The HuffingtonPost and the website for Al-Arabiya (alarabiya.net) are blocked in Iran. The New York Times, available in May 2009, has been blocked on several occasions in the past. Global Voices, an international blog aggregator, was blocked in May 2009. The Web sites of numerous international free speech organizations are blocked, including rsf.org, epic.org, citizenlab.org and eff.org. The Web sites of Amnesty International and the OpenNet Initiative were not blocked in May 2009.

A higher proportion of independent media Web sites in Farsi are blocked compared to English language content. Though the English version of the BBC’s web site (www.bbc.co.uk) was not blocked until the June 2009 elections,62 the BBC’s Persian service (www.bbc.co.uk/persian) was blocked soon after its launch in January 2006. The introduction of this new broadcast station was condemned by the Iranian government and declared to be illegal.63 Iranian.com, roozonline.com, and radiozamaneh.com are among the independent sources of news and opinion that are blocked in Iran.

The popular Farsi social networking and independent news Web site, Balatarin.com, was blocked in 2007, reportedly for a user-contributed post with a link to a Web site that included a rumor of the death of Supreme Leader Ali Hoseyni Khamenei. Strident objections by users to the blocking of Balatarin were not successful in reversing the blocking decision, and Balatarin continues to be blocked.

The Web sites of several ethnic and religious minorities are blocked in Iran, including those associated with the Baha’i faith and Kurdish movements. Web sites that are critical of Islam are widely blocked. A higher proportion of Web sites in Farsi related to religious and minority rights are blocked compared to those in English.

The blocking of blogs in Iran is focused primarily on individual blogs. However, several blog hosting services are blocked in their entirely, including www.livejournal.com and www.xanga.com. Persian-language blog host www.blogfa.com was down for several days during the June 2009 elections; at the time of writing service had not yet been restored.64 Technorati.com and boingboing.com are also blocked.

In the fall of 2008, ONI tested a sample of approximately 8,800 blogs, drawing the sample from those blogs in the Farsi blogosphere with the highest number of links to one another.65 Of these, approximately 9 percent were found to be blocked by TCI. A majority of the blogs that were blocked are associated with secular politics and reformist viewpoints. However, blogs from the conservative and religious segments of the blogosphere were blocked as well, several of which apparently included content deemed to be too extreme. Further ONI analysis carried out over a sample of filtered and unfiltered blogs displays a systematic targeting of blogs with oppositional views but with substantial inconsistency; many blogs with solidly dissident views remain unblocked, while other blogs without controversial content are blocked.

Several popular social networking Web sites are blocked in Iran, including MySpace.com and Orkut.com. Prior to being blocked, Orkut was highly popular in Iran. Among the more prominent social media Web sites, Flickr.com, www.bebo.com, www.metacafe.com, www.photobucket.com and delicious.com are all blocked. YouTube.com, one of the most popular destinations for Iranian Internet users, was available in May 2009 after several episodes of blocking in the past, though it was blocked during the June 2009 elections.66

Consistent with one of the stated objectives of Iran’s filtering policy, pornographic content is heavily filtered. Iran is highly successful in blocking pornography, blocking a vast majority of the Web sites tested by ONI. Sites that include photographs depicting provocative attire are also consistently blocked. Esmail Radkani, of Iran’s quasi-official Information Technology Company, claimed in an interview in September 2006 that ten million Web sites were filtered at that time, 90 percent of which contained “immoral” content.67 Anther official was quoted in November 2008 saying that five million Web sites were blocked in Iran.68 Given the large number of Web sites with sexual content blocked in Iran, neither of those estimates is implausible.

The filtering of material related to sexuality extends as well to Web sites offering content related to sexual education. Approximately half of the dating Web sites tested by ONI were found to be blocked in Iran. ONI testing also found significant blocking of content related to homosexuality, particularly if it had any connection to Iran. A number of Web sites related to drugs, alcohol and gambling are blocked in Iran, although many remain unblocked.

Web sites that offer tools and techniques for circumventing filters are also heavily filtered. Just as new Web sites with options for circumventing Internet filters are regularly offered by Internet users around the world, blocking lists in Iran are frequently updated to include these new Web sites. A great majority of Web sites offering information about and access to circumvention tools tested by ONI were blocked.

The proxy server filtering strategy also permits filtering by keyword. Web searches that include the keyword “women” are still blocked in Iran. The word “sex” and a broad range of words related to sexual activity both in English and Farsi are blocked. The Farsi word for “photograph” is also blocked.

Conclusion

Iran continues to strengthen the legal, administrative and technical aspects of its Internet filtering systems. The Internet censorship system in Iran is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated in the world. Advances in domestic technical capacity have contributed to the implementation of a centralized filtering strategy and a reduced reliance on Western technologies. Despite the deeply held commitment to regulating Internet content, authorities continue to be challenged in their attempts to control online speech. Political filtering related to the 2009 presidential campaign, including the blocking of Facebook and several opposition party Web sites, brought renewed attention to the role of filtering in Iran.

1. Peter Feuilherade, “Iran’s banned press turns to the net,” BBC News, August 9, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_r....
2. Human Rights Watch Report, “False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa: Iran,” November 2005, http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/5.htm#_Toc119125727. See also Clark Boyd, “The price paid for blogging in Iran,” BBC News, February 21, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4283231.stm.
3. “????? ?? ?? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????,” BBC News (Persian), November 18, 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2008/11/081119_mg_basij_filtering.shtm....
4. David Bandurski, “China’s Guerilla War for the Web,” Far Eastern Economic Review, July 2008, http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/august/chinas-guerrilla-war-for-the-web?....
5. International Telecommunications Union, “ITU Internet Indicators 2000,” http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/Reporting/ShowReportFrame.aspx?ReportNam....
6. International Telecommunications Union, “ITU Internet Indicators 2008,” http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/Reporting/ShowReportFrame.aspx?ReportNam....
7. International Telecommunications Union, “ITU Internet Indicators 2008,” http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/Reporting/ShowReportFrame.aspx?ReportNam....
8. John Kelly and Bruce Etling, “Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere,” Berkman Center for Internet and Society, April 5, 2008, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Publ....
9. Atieh Bahar Consulting, “Iran Telecom Brief,” October 20, 2008, http://www.atiehbahar.com/Resource.aspx?n=1000014.
10. BBC Persian, “Speed reduced for high speed Internet in Iran,” October 20, 2006, http://www.bbc.net.uk/persian/science/story/2006/10/061020_fb_rsh_adsl.s....
11. Ibid.
12. Robert Tait, “Iran bans fast internet to cut west's influence,” The Guardian, October 18, 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/oct/18/news.iran.
13. Telecommunication Company of Iran, “Performance Report,” September 2008, http://irantelecom.ir/pdfs/amar/SEP_2008.pdf.
14. Ibid.
15. Mehr News, “Criticism of the minister of communications’ statement in regards to internet speed,” May 25, 2008, http://www.mehrnews.ir/NewsPrint.aspx?NewsID=689151.
16. Iran CSOs Training & Research Center, “A Report on the Status of the Internet in Iran,” November 8, 2005, http://www.genderit.org/upload/ad6d215b74e2a8613f0cf5416c9f3865/A_Report....
17. Information Technology Company, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, http://www.itc.ir/Portal/Home/ShowPage.aspx?Object=GENERALTEXT&CategoryI....
18. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, translation at http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html.
19. Iran CSOs Training & Research Center, “A Report on the Status of the Internet in Iran,” November 8, 2005, http://www.genderit.org/upload/ad6d215b74e2a8613f0cf5416c9f3865/A_Report....
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Information Technology Company, “The important events of communications technology in 2008,” March 25, 2009, http://www.itc.ir/Portal/Home/ShowPage.aspx?Object=News&ID=52d93a02-e5ce....
23. Iranian Technology News Agency, http://www.itna.ir/archives/news/009919.php.
24. OpenNet Initiative, “Internet Filtering in Iran in 2004-2005: A Country Study,” http://opennet.net/studies/iran2005.
25. Ibid.
26. Iran ICT News, “Study of some of the shortcomings of the filtering system,” April 7, 2006, http://backdoor.iranictnews.ir/T_34469_____%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AE%DB%8C-%D9%....
27. Akhbar Rooz, “The big companies blocking the internet in Iran,” September 4, 2008, http://www.akhbar-rooz.com/news.jsp?essayId=16978. Also, see, for example, http://www.amnafzar.com.
28. Ibid.
29. Article 19, “Memorandum on Regulation of the Media in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” March 2, 2006, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,ART19,,IRN,,475e4e270,0.html.
30. Article 6, Press Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, http://www.parstimes.com/law/press_law.html.
31. Articles 26 and 27, Press Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, http://www.parstimes.com/law/press_law.html.
32. Note 2 of Article 1 of Iran’s Press Law (as amended in on April 18, 2000) defines electronic publications as “publications regularly published under a permanent name, specific date and serial number … on different subjects such as news, commentary, as well as social, political, economic, agricultural, cultural, religious, scientific, technical, military, sports, artistic matters, etc via electronic vehicles.” Publications must also have obtained “publication licenses from the Press Supervisory Board in the Ministry of Cultural and Islamic Guidance,” otherwise they “fall out of the scope of the Press law and become subject to General Laws.”
33. “????? ????? ?????? ????? ????? ??????? ?? ???? (Persian),” Deutsche Welle, April 15, 2009, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4178392,00.html.
34. Ghalam News, “The new decision for the internet media by the parliament,” April 15, 2009, http://www.ghalamnews.ir/news-6261.aspx.
35. Ibid.
36. Article 19, “Memorandum on Regulation of the Media in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” March 2, 2006, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,ART19,,IRN,,475e4e270,0.html.
37. Islamic Penal Code of Iran, May 22, 1996, unof¬ficial translation at http://mehr.org/index_islam.htm. Article 500 states that “anyone who undertakes any form of propaganda against the state ... will be sentenced to between three months and one year in prison.”
38. Ghalam News, “The new decision for the internet media by the parliament,” April 15, 2009, http://www.ghalamnews.ir/news-6261.aspx.
39. Human Rights Watch Report, “False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa: Iran,” November 2005, http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/5.htm.
40. BBC Monitoring International Reports, citing text of report by E’temad-e Melli, “Iran press Iranian activists oppose regulation of websites, weblogs,” January 2, 2007. See also Omid Memarian, “Bloggers rebel at new censorship,” Inter Press Service News Agency, January 10, 2007, http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36123, reporting that prohibited content includes criticism of religious figures, sexual matters, content considered offensive to the Ayatollah Khomeini, or content slanderous of Islamic law.
41. BBC Monitoring International Reports, citing text of report by E’temad-e Melli, “Iran press Iranian activists oppose regulation of websites, weblogs,” January 2, 2007.
42. One report puts the number of blog registrations at 850.
43. The status of draft legislation is reported in Farsi at http://tarh.majlis.ir/?Report&RegId=121.
44. Cybercrimes Bill, Chapter 6, Article 23, http://tarh.majlis.ir/?Download&Id=2288.
45. Cybercrimes Bill, Chapter 6, Article 21, http://tarh.majlis.ir/?Download&Id=2288.
46. Cybercrimes Bill, Chapter 3: Articles 3 and 4, http://tarh.majlis.ir/?Download&Id=2288.
47. Information Technology News Agency, “Report of an ISP closure by judicial system agents,” http://www.itna.ir/archives/article/000665.php (accessed April 30, 2007). See also Human Rights Watch Press Release, “Iran: Prosecute Torturers, Not Bloggers,” December 12, 2006, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/12/iran14824.htm. See also Human Rights Watch Report, “Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran,” June 7, 2004, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture/iran/.
48. Information Technology News Agency “Report of an ISP closure by judicial system agents,” http://www.itna.ir/archives/article/000665.php.
49. “Iran lifts ban on conservative web site,” The Age, March 20, 2007, http://www.theage.com.au/news/Technology/Iran-lifts-ban-on-conservative-....
50. Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), Interview with Head of Iran Law Society, February 16, 2007, http://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-877388.
51. “Offices of website closed,” International Freedom of Expression Exchange, September 24, 2007, http://www.ifex.org/iran/2007/09/24/offices_of_website_closed/.
52. Bill Samii, “Iran: Government strengthens its control of the Internet,” Radio Free Europe, September 29, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/e6ed377e-7618-479d-8e0e-b29....
53. Eli Lake, “Fed contractor, cell phone maker sold spy system to Iran,” The Washington Times, April 13, 2009, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/europe39s-telecoms-aid-w....
54. Ibid.
55. OpenNet Initiative, “Internet Filtering in Iran in 2006-2007: A Country Study,” May 9, 2007, http://opennet.net/studies/iran2007.
56. Najmeh Bozorgmehr, “Facebook sets tone in Iran’s electoral contest,” Financial Times, May 13, 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da46ad4e-3f19-11de-ae4f-00144feabdc0.html?ncli....
57. “Ahmadinejad denies calling for Facebook ban,” CNN, May 25, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/25/iran.ahmadinejad.facebook/.
58. Ghalam News, “Facebook Unblocked” May 26, 2009, http://www.ghalamnews.ir/news.aspx?id=16014.
59. OpenNet Initiative, “Cracking Down on Digital Communication and Political Organizing in Iran,” June 15, 2009, http://opennet.net/blog/2009/06/cracking-down-digital-communication-and-....
60. Golnaz Esfandiari, “Why Did Iran Unblock Facebook?,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 14, 2009, http://www.rferl.org/content/Why_Did_Iran_Unblock_Facebook/1510005.html.
61. Aftab, “Sending the ‘not to do list’ to news,” April 7, 2009, http://www.aftab.ir/news/2009/apr/07/c1c1239084884_politics_iran_electio....
62. OpenNet Initiative, “Cracking Down on Digital Communication and Political Organizing in Iran,” June 15, 2009, http://opennet.net/blog/2009/06/cracking-down-digital-communication-and-....
63. “Iran blocks BBC Persian website,” BBC News, January 24, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4644398.stm.
64. OpenNet Initiative, “Cracking Down on Digital Communication and Political Organizing in Iran,” June 15, 2009, http://opennet.net/blog/2009/06/cracking-down-digital-communication-and-....
65. For a description of the Persian blogosphere, see John Kelly and Bruce Etling, “Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere,” Berkman Center for Internet and Society, April 5, 2008, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Publ....
66. OpenNet Initiative, “Cracking Down on Digital Communication and Political Organizing in Iran,” June 15, 2009, http://opennet.net/blog/2009/06/cracking-down-digital-communication-and-....
67. Interview with Esma’il Radkani, Iranian Communication and Information Technology News Agency, September 11, 2006, http://citna.ir/435.html.
68. “Two cyber-dissidents jailed, 5 million websites censored,” Reporters Without Borders, November 20, 2008, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29366.

ONI releases new survey of Internet filtering and surveillance in Iran

Rebekah Heacock — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:13:40 -0400

Last week, as Iranian voters went to the polls to elect the country's next president, the Iranian government blocked access to number of political Web sites, as well as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Yesterday the OpenNet Initiative profiled the extent of this crackdown. Today we are releasing a new survey of Internet filtering and online content controls in Iran, which details the most recent instances of censorship and provides a basic framework for understanding the legal, technical and institutional mechanisms of filtering in Iran.

Internet Filtering in Iran in 2006-2007

Rebekah Heacock — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:59:43 -0400

PDF Version
Note: a newer version of this profile is available at Country Profiles: Iran.

Overview

Since 2000—in the midst of a media crackdown that has seen the judiciary close more than 100 publications, inspiring widespread self-censorship—the Islamic Republic of Iran has installed one of the most extensive technical filtering systems in the world. Iranian authorities have detained dozens of people for publishing material online. In addition, Iran has moved to contain the Internet within heightened and more explicit regulation, accommodating aggressive online censorship policies through a complex system of political networks and their affiliated government institutions.

Background

Regulation of freedom of expression in Iran is extensive and the parameters of prohibited conduct are vague and ambiguous, or simply undefined. It is prohibited to publish matters relating to atheism and sensitive information without prior approval, and media cannot sow social discord or divisions, dissent against state interests, insult Islam or officials, or quote from deviate parties or parties opposed to Islam.1 Compared with the constitutionally mandated state control of radio and television,2 and the repression against independent papers and reformist voices in print media, the space initially afforded to free expression online was a unique phenomenon for Iran. However, after several years of relative openness in Iranian cyberspace, bloggers, journalists, and others began to be targeted, detained, and even tortured for their online activities. And zealous new legislation places sweeping controls over what people may post to the Internet.

Internet in Iran

The Internet in Iran has experienced the most explosive growth of the countries in the Middle East region, with an increase of 2,900 percent between 2000 and 2005.3 Today an estimated 7.2 million people are online in Iran, and there are approximately 400,000 blogs in Farsi.4 Yet even as the government continues to promote the Internet as an engine of economic growth, one Iranian official recently boasted that Iran has censored ten million Web sites, and that the judiciary requests an additional 1,000 sites to be blocked every month.5

On October 11, 2006, an order reportedly issued to Internet service providers (ISPs) by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MICT) made providing Internet services—for use in private or public places—at a speed higher than 128 kilobytes per second illegal, reportedly with the aim of hindering users’ ability to download foreign cultural products (such as music and films) and organize political opposition.6 Such an about-face contradicts Iran’s fourth Five-Year Development Plan, which calls for 1.5 million high-speed Internet ports throughout the country.7

At that time, some 250,000 users were using broadband services, with demand growing sharply.8 Though the order applies to both public and home use, high-speed Internet services are most commonly available for commercial and office use. Over the past two years eleven companies had been licensed to provide such high-speed services free from government competition and have invested significant capital in importing the required machinery and setting up the required infrastructure.9 This measure has pushed these private sector companies to the verge of bankruptcy. Furthermore, with the banning of high-speed Internet, several projects—such as the USD6 million Internet television project of the ITC (Information Technology Company), as well as virtual surgery lab projects and e-universities and many more scientific and commercial projects being implemented in the country—may be doomed to fail.10

Members of parliament are campaigning against the broadband ban and have started a Web site, http://www.more-speed-more-progress.ir/, which is hosted on Iranian government servers.11 Although the head of the Public Relations Department of the Regulation Organization said that the ban would be lifted in four months’ time, after the government had had a chance to put in place measures to more effectively monitor Internet use, the Minister of the MICT has said that “positive” results could make the measure permanent. Individuals can file a written complaint with the Regulation Organization and those who can demonstrate that they will use broadband access for “legitimate” purposes may be allowed to circumvent the ban.12

Legal and regulatory frameworks

As with all print media under the Press Law, Internet content providers are subject to two complementary sets of requirements: they must produce content within state-defined objectives and they must refrain from producing state-defined types of illegal material.13 Thus, through the judiciary, parliament, and the executive bodies who all exercise the authority to make law, content providers were encouraged to promote genuine Islamic culture while being warned against fomenting social discord or encouraging dissent against state interests.

The legal status of blogs and Web sites in Iran has been contested, but starting in 2006 the government took additional steps to bring them firmly in hand. First, framing regulations to systematize control and management of Internet activity were issued by the government and signed by the vice president on November 26, 2006. Second, the Bill of Cyber Crimes’ Sanctions (Cyber Crimes Bill) prepared by the Judiciary’s Committee for Combating Cyber Crimes on October 12, 2006,was slated to be signed in to law by parliament;14 this bill will apply to all forms of electronic writings and graphics and generally any activity within the realm of cyberspace.

The November 2006 regulations were a response to a directive of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council (SCRC) to manage Internet activity “while considering individual rights and safeguarding Islamic, national and cultural values.”15 The Ministries of Islamic Culture and Guidance (MICG), Justice, and Information are the main governmental bodies responsible for leading this effort, and the MICG was given the duty to create an infrastructure to systematize management and stamp out illicit and immoral content.16 All activities of Web sites and blogs that do not obtain a license from the MICG are considered illegal. On January 1, 2007, the MICG issued a notice requiring all owners of blogs and Web sites to register by March 1, provide detailed personal information, and abstain from posting certain types of content.17 An official from the Telecommunications Ministry claimed that enforcement would be impracticable.18

The Cyber Crimes Bill makes ISPs criminally liable for the content they carry, effectively shifting the burden of censoring Web sites and potentially e-mail correspondence on to their shoulders. Under the Cyber Crimes Law, ISPs that do not abide by government regulations (including filtering regulations) may be temporarily or permanently suspended, depending on the graveness of the offense, and their owners could face prison terms.19 Article 18 of the bill requires ISPs to ensure that “forbidden” content is not displayed on their servers, that they immediately inform law enforcement agencies of violations, that they retain the content as evidence, and that they restrict access to the prohibited content. The bill also includes provisions for the protection and disclosure of confidential data and information as well as the publishing of obscene content.

Until the introduction of the Cyber Crimes Bill, the most relevant statute governing the activities of blogs and Web sites was the 2000 Press Law. Although experts argued to the contrary, through the Press Law electronic publications were subsumed into the definition of press publications.20 As such, Iranians were theoretically required to first obtain a license to publish a Web site or a blog and were subject to the Press Law. Among the Press Law’s broad prohibitions on speech are articles that prohibit “promoting subjects that might damage the foundation of the Islamic Republic … offending the Leader of the Revolution … or quoting articles from the deviant press, parties or groups that oppose Islam (inside and outside the country) in such a manner as to propagate such ideas.”21 Other provisions prohibit insulting Islam or senior religious authorities.22 The Press Supervisory Board under the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance had absolute power to revoke licenses, ban publications, and refer complaints to a special Press Court.23

As “publications” under the Press Law, blogs and Web sites that did not obtain licenses became subject to stricter “General Laws.” As a part of the “General Laws,” the Penal Code places further restrictions on speech. The Penal Code incorporates content-based crimes such as propaganda against the state (while leaving “propaganda” undefined).24 Similarly, Article 513 allows for the death penalty or imprisonment of up to five years for speech deemed to be an “insult to religion,” but leaves “insult” undefined.25 Article 698 provides maximum sentences of two years imprisonment or seventy-four lashes for those convicted of intentionally creating “anxiety and unease in the public’s mind,” spreading “false rumors,” or writing about “acts which are not true.”26 Article 609 criminalizes criticism of state officials in connection with carrying out their work, and calls for a punishment of a fine, seventy-four lashes, or between three and six months in prison for such “insults.”

ISPs and subscribers are also subject to prohibitions on twenty types of activities, where insulting Islam and religious leaders and institutions, as well as fomenting national discord and promoting drug use or obscenity and immoral behaviors, are prominent.27

The Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Sites is legally empowered to identify sites that carry prohibited content.28 Established in December 2002 (some reports state June 2003), this Committee notifies the MICT of criteria for identifying unauthorized Web sites and what sites shall be blocked. The SCRC oversees committee members from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Intelligence and Security Ministry, and the Sound and Vision Organization (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting).29

In February 2007 the online conservative journal Baztab.com became the first site reported to have been blocked by the November 2006 regulations. According to a government official, Baztab not only failed to apply for a license, but it also violated the regulations by disclosing state secrets and other confidential military information, insulting government officials, and publishing false news.30 However, the Iran Supreme Court of Iran ruled against the filtering of Baztab and it was made accessible inside Iran again.31 This incident sparked a debate within Iranian legal and media circles over the authority of the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Sites, and whether as an executive body (government) it was improperly involved in making legislative or judicial decisions according to the constitution.32

However, not all filtering occurs through this body. The Internet Bureau of the Judiciary also orders ISPs to block sites through court orders, which are considered a form of lawful punishment imposed on legal entities.33 Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, who has led harsh crackdowns on media and has also been implicated in cases of the torture of detainees, including twenty-one bloggers arrested in 2004, has also ordered that certain sites be censored.34 In May 2006 the MICT announced the formation of a central filtering office, reportedly to filter illegal content, identify Internet users, and keep a record of the sites they visit.35 The MICT subsequently denied having such tracking capabilities, saying its primary objective was to block pornography.36

In 2001, the SCRC declared that the government was taking control of all access service providers (ASPs).37 ISPs were required to obtain bandwidth from these ASPs and also to employ filtering systems to block access to immoral, political, and other “undesirable” content while storing user data and reporting to the ICT Ministry.38 ISPs in which the government owns a share, such as the popular Pars Online, reportedly filter some sites at their own discretion over and above what is required by the regulations.

ONI testing results

ONI conducted testing on seven ISPs: APN, Dana Fajr, Datak, Jahan Nama Co., Pars Online, Shatel, and Tarashe. ONI testing confirmed that Iran employs the greatest degree of filtering of all the countries tested, in both scope and depth of content. Iran uses a filtering proxy that displays a blockpage when accessing blocked content. Heavily filtered types of content include pornography, provocative attire, and circumvention tools, which is characteristic of states that use commercial software such as SmartFilter. ONI testing also found significant blocking of content related to homosexuality, particularly if it had any connection to Iran; Farsi-language news sites; and opposition political sites.

A majority of circumvention tools were blocked by all ISPs, including http://www.peoplesproxy.com/ and http://www.guardster.com/. Compared with anonymizers and proxies, filtering of other Internet tools was more selective but nevertheless occurred in all categories tested. Certain multimedia sharing sites, such as http://www.metacafe.com/ and http://www.photobucket.com/, were completely blocked, while others were less consistently filtered: the popular photo-sharing Web site Flickr.com was blocked on four ISPs at time of testing, while the video-sharing site Youtube.com was blocked on only two. Also filtered in limited numbers were social networking sites, but at time of testing popular social networking sites such as Myspace.com and Orkut.com were universally blocked. Some Farsi-language forums for discussing movies (http://www.aghaghi.com/) and music (http://www.roozi.com/) were also filtered.

Only a limited number of search engines were filtered, and then, only on some ISPs. Among them were including http://www.163.com/ and the Chinese site http://www.sina.com. However, on certain ISPs—including Shatel, Datak, and Pars Online, keywords in URL paths are blocked, most often affecting queries in search engines (e.g., http://128.100.171.12/key.php?word=torture).

Of blog-hosting sites tested, only one, http://www.livejournal.com/, was blocked by all ISPs. A limited number of other sites, including http://www.xanga.com and the blog search engine Technorati.com, were blocked by multiple ISPs. Instead filtering targeted individual blogs. A substantial number, though not a majority, of individual blogs hosted by Blogspot and others were filtered; these blogs spanned subjects such as religion, women’s rights, political reform, and reproductive health. All seven ISPs chose to filter the same individual blogs, which all happened to be hosted on Blogspot. Very few of the individual blogs hosted on Persian-language services, such as Blogfa and http://www.persianblog.com/, were filtered by any ISP.

Iran is among the most successful blockers of blocks more pornographic Web sites than any other country in countries the world where ONI conducted testing. Esmail Radkani, of Iran’s quasi-official Information Technology Company, claimed in a recent interview that 90 percent of the ten million filtered sites were deemed to contain “immoral” content.39 This assertion was supported by ONI’s tests. With very few exceptions, all of the pornography and provocative attire sites tested were blocked by all ISPs. Further, no pornography site tested was blocked by fewer than five ISPs. The government does not filter content regarding drugs, alcohol, gambling, or dating as universally, though a substantial number of sites in these categories are blocked as well.

Outside of “immoral” content, independent and dissenting voices are filtered across a range of issues pertaining to Iran, including political reform, criticism of the government, reporting on human rights issues, and minority and women’s rights. Filtering in these areas, across nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), blogs, and thematic Web sites, is inconsistent and limited when content is provided solely in English, and much more substantial and complete across ISPs for sites relating to Iran or in Farsi. For example, while no independent media sites or newspapers available only in English were filtered across all ISPs tested, a large majority of similar sites relating to Iran or composed in Farsi were consistently blocked, such as http://www.iranvajahan.net and the publisher http://www.kayhanpublishing.uk.com.

All seven ISPs tested blocked access to almost the same list of human rights, political reform, and opposition sites. All ISPs kept access to international watchdogs such as Amnesty International and FIDH open, but unilaterally blocked Iran-focused groups such as the Society for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran (http://polpiran.com/) and the online magazine http://siahsepid.com/.

For remaining content categories, the considerable variation among the sites blocked by the ISPs suggests that they are exercising some control over the implementation of filtering. There is no discernible pattern in the content of sites blocked only by one ISP. For example, Pars Online, the largest private provider of Internet services in Iran, is the only ISP to block such disparate sites as http://www.boingboing.net, the International Herald Tribune, and the teen sexual health site http://www.teenhealthfx.com. Tarashe is the only ISP that blocked the e-mail service Hushmail and the Times of India newspaper.

Overall, the greatest overlap in filtering occurred with Jahan Nama, Pars Online, Datak, and Shatel. Together, these ISPs filtered a range of Web sites in common, including a substantial number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights organizations (including http://www.gmhc.org/ and http://www.iglhrc.org/), NGOs focusing on free expression and access to information, dating services, and alcohol and drug sites.

Conclusion

Iran continues to maintain the most extensive filtering regime of any country ONI has studied. As filtering and censorship policies evolve, government officials and citizens have pushed back against many of the more extreme measures, including the ban on high-speed Internet in 2006. New developments may provide opportunities to contest these policies further. The draft Cyber Crimes Bill prohibits any blocking or investigation of data without a warrant issued by a court after evidence of suspicious activity. When this provision becomes law, it could potentially be used to impede the arbitrary closures and blocking of Web sites.

1. Ibid.
2. Article 44(2), Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, amended July 28, 1989, http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ir00000_.html.
3. See U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, http://www.unodc.org/iran/en/crime_prevention.html (accessed April 30, 2007); Telecommunications Company of Iran, Annual Report 2005, http://irantelecom.ir/eng.asp?sm=3&page=17&code=5.
4. BBC Monitoring International Reports, citing text of report by E’temad-e Melli, “Iran press Iranian activists oppose regulation of websites, weblogs,” January 2, 2007.
5. Interview with Esma’il Radkani, Iranian Communication and Information Technology News Agency, September 11, 2006, http://citna.ir/435.html.
6. The Guardian, “Iran bans fast internet to cut west's influence: Service providers told to restrict online speeds Opponents say move will hamper country's progress,” October 18, 2006.
7. See the Web site of the Information Technology Company, http://www.dci.ir/english/moarefi.htm.
8. BBC Persian, “Speed reduced for high speed Internet in Iran,” October 20, 2006, http://www.bbc.net.uk/persian/science/story/2006/10/061020_fb_rsh_adsl.s....
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. The Guardian, “Iran bans fast internet to cut west's influence: Service providers told to restrict online speeds Opponents say move will hamper country's progress,” October 18, 2006.
12. Information Technology News Agency, “Speed limitation becomes permanent,” October 20, 2006, http://www.itna.ir/archives/news/005618.php (in Persian).
13. Article 19, Regulation of the Media in the Islamic Republic of Iran, March 2006.
14. Bill on Punishment for Cyber Crimes (Cyber Crimes Bill), October 12, 2006, http://www.hoqouq.com/law/article522.html.
15. BBC Monitoring Middle East, translation of report of Kayhan newspaper, “There were sound grounds for banning Baztab website: MP,” February 25, 2007.
16. Ibid.
17. BBC Monitoring International Reports, citing text of report by E’temad-e Melli, “Iran press Iranian activists oppose regulation of websites, weblogs,” January 2, 2007. See also Omid Memarian, “Bloggers rebel at new censorship,” Inter Press Service News Agency, January 10, 2007, reporting that prohibited content includes criticism of religious figures, sexual matters, content considered offensive to the Ayatollah Khomeini, or content slanderous of Islamic law.
18. BBC Monitoring International Reports, citing text of report by E’temad-e Melli, “Iran press Iranian activists oppose regulation of websites, weblogs,” January 2, 2007.
19. Article 21, Bill on Punishment for Cyber Crimes (Cyber Crimes Bill), October 12, 2006, http://www.hoqouq.com/law/article522.html.
20. Note 2 of Article 1 of Iran’s Press Law (as amended in 2000) defines electronic publications as “publications regularly published under a permanent name, specific date and serial number … on different subjects such as news, commentary, as well as social, political, economic, agricultural, cultural, religious, scientific, technical, military, sports, artistic matters, etc via electronic vehicles.” Publications must also have obtained “publication licenses from the Press Supervisory Board in the Ministry of Cultural and Islamic Guidance,” otherwise they “fall out of the scope of the Press law and become subject to General Laws.”
21. Press Law, Article 6.
22. Press Law, Articles 26–27.
23. Article 19, Memorandum on Regulation of the Media in the Islamic Republic of Iran, March 2006.
24. Islamic Penal Code of Iran, May 22, 1996, Article 500 states that “anyone who undertakes any form of propaganda against the state ... will be sentenced to between three months and one year in prison”; unofficial translation at http://mehr.org/index_islam.htm.
25. Islamic Penal Code of Iran, May 22, 1996, Articles 513–15; unofficial translation at http://mehr.org/index_islam.htm.
26. Islamic Penal Code of Iran, May 22, 1996, Articles 697, 698, 700; unofficial translation at http://mehr.org/index_islam.htm. Chapter 27 of the Penal Code on libels and revilements, and more specifically Article 698, only stipulate punishment for statements made in the press and does not cover writings in electronic format in computer and other communication systems. As seen earlier, “press” is defined in Article 1 of the Press Law, but the general articulation of Article 698 subsumes both publications with and without licenses.
27. Human Rights Watch Report, False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa: Iran, November 2005, http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/5.htm.
28. Decree on the Constitution of the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Websites, Official Gazette No. 16877.
29. Bill Samii, “Iran: Government strengthens its control of the Internet,” Radio Free Europe, September 29, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/e6ed377e-7618-479d-8e0e-b29....
30. BBC Monitoring Middle East, translation of report of Kayhan newspaper, “There were sound grounds for banning Baztab website: MP,” February 25, 2007.
31. http://www.theage.com.au/news/Technology/Iran-lifts-ban-on-conservative-....
32. Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), Interview with Head of Iran Law Society, February 16, 2007, http://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-877388.
33. Information Technology News Agency “Report of an ISP closure by judicial system agents,” http://www.itna.ir/archives/article/000665.php (accessed April 30, 2007).
34. Human Rights Watch Press Release, Iran: Prosecute Torturers, Not Bloggers, December 12, 2006, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/12/iran14824.htm. See also Human Rights Watch Report, Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran, June 7, 2004, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture/iran/.
35. Bill Samii, “Iran: Government strengthens its control of the Internet,” Radio Free Europe, September 29, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/e6ed377e-7618-479d-8e0e-b29....
36. Ibid.
37. Iran CSOs Training & Research Center, A Report on the Status of the Internet in Iran, November 2005, 8, www.genderit.org/upload/ad6d215b74e2a8613f0cf5416c9f3865/A_Report_on_Int....
38. Ibid. See also Human Rights Watch Report, False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa: Iran, November 2005, http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/5.htm.
39. Ibid.

Cracking Down on Digital Communication and Political Organizing in Iran

Rebekah Heacock — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:28:43 -0400

By Rob Faris and Rebekah Heacock

The Internet and mobile phones have taken on a major role in Iranian politics over the last several months. As protests over the contested election results continue in Iran, the government has dramatically increased its control over digital technologies. Many important Web sites have been blocked over the past couple of days, including the Web sites of the opposition parties in Iran, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. While political organizers have learned to leverage the organizing power of Web 2.0 tools, government censors in Iran are quick to shut them down when they are most effective. None of this is surprising; it reflects similar events seen in many places around the world.

Digital tools have been shown to be effective political organizing tools, from the Obama presidential campaign in the US to Ukraine, Colombia and Moldova. As powerful as new technologies may be as political tools, information and communication technologies have also been proven to be exceedingly fragile; in countries where the government has sufficient latitude to interfere with the use of these tools, they are easily disrupted and if necessary, can be shut down entirely.

The role of information and communication technologies in Iranian politics has matured rapidly over the past year. Political opposition groups in particular have adopted new online and mobile phone-based organizing tactics, using Facebook, Twitter, Web sites, email, cell phones and SMS and the full suite of Web 2.0 tools as mechanisms for political organizing. This is has all taken place in a highly restrictive media environment in which the Internet and other forms of digital communication are intensely regulated. Facebook has been blocked and unblocked several times in the past year. The rationale and legal justifications for censoring Internet communications are broad. Anything construed as anti-Islamic or damaging to the Iranian state can be blocked by what amounts to executive fiat, although there are many voices within the institutions charged with blocking web sites in Iran.

Earlier reports that the government shut down the Internet entirely during the June 12 elections appear to be exaggerated. Jim Cowie at Renesys looked at the evidence from international routing data and indeed found evidence of some strange events in Iran’s traffic to the outside.

However, the Internet is still up in Iran, though reports from inside Iran suggest that it is much slower than normal and a broader range of websites are being blocked. The fact that Iran has invested so much in blocking Internet content might mean that they have greater confidence about keeping tight controls over content available in Iran without shutting down the Internet entirely, as Burma had done in the face of popular protests there.

After a large surge in SMS traffic in the run-up to the election, multiple sources inside Iran reported that the country’s SMS networks went down just nine hours before the polls opened. This is unsurprising, as SMS has been used in many places as a powerful tool for organizing protests. Reporters Without Borders reports that the SMS take-down was part of attempt to prevent opposition supporters from collecting election results.

By Saturday, all mobile phone services had been shut off in Tehran. Plans by an organization led by former president Rafsanjani to carry out election monitoring using cell phones might have factored into this decision. Cell phone service was restored on June 14, but SMS continues to be blocked.

Western media sources have covered the news as it unfolds, although some US media outlets have been criticized for not focusing more attention on the events in Iran. The government has not thrown western journalists out of the country, though it has made reporting difficult. The BBC has traced the jamming of one of its satellites, which has interrupted access to radio and television for audiences in Iran, the Middle East and Europe, to a location inside Iran.

Despite the tightening restrictions on communications tools, citizen journalists inside Iran have been hard at work. Video clips are widely available on the net, as are photos of Iranian voters and post-election protests. Although YouTube and DailyMotion are both blocked, we were able to upload a small video to Vimeo. The generally slow Internet speeds will hinder the upload of large files.

ONI has confirmed the expansion of blocking over the past several days, making access to ongoing reporting of events as well as political organizing far more difficult for Iranians. In the past several days, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have been blocked. The English version of BBC is now blocked; the Persian version has been blocked for months. Websites of the major opposition candidates are all blocked, including Mousavi’s website (mirhussein.com) and Karoubi’s website (teribon.com). The blog host, blogfa.com, has been down for several days now, preventing many Iranian bloggers from updating their blogs.

We tested the thirty web sites that receive disproportionate attention from the reformist segments of the Iran blogosphere and about half of these are not blocked, including norooznews.ir, webneveshteha.com, emruz.biz, emruz.info, yaarinews.com, mowj.ir, maryamshab.blogfa.com, mirhussein.com, masoudbehnoud.com, drmoeen.ir and noandish.com. Among those not blocked include ghalamnews.ir, aftabnews.ir and khatami.ir. (Thanks to John Kelly for the list of sites that we tested. This is derived from the blogosphere mapping work of John Kelly and Bruce Etling).

In response, some pro-democracy activists are targeting government Web sites with DDOS attacks in an attempt to strike back at the current regime. While they have had some success – leader.ir, ahmadinejad.ir, and iribnews.ir were reported to be down – experts worry that the attacks may be used by the Iranian government to justify their own filtering or, worse, may cripple the Iranian network as a whole. (Note: Leader.ir was back up when we tested. Ahmadinejad.ir and iribnews.ir were still down.)

Many years of Internet filtering have prompted the development of circumvention tools by and for Iranians. Many Internet users in Iran have become adept at getting past the Internet censors there. An unintended consequence is that there are many sophisticated users and tools that are prepared to circumvent government attempts to limit access to online sites. This increase in filtering associated with the elections can be expected to increase the demand for access to and knowledge about circumvention technology.

These measures to further limit access to information around the contested election results are not going to help the current the Iranian government if it seeks to build legitimacy.

Iranians Regain Access to Facebook After Day-Long Ban

charles — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:03:01 -0400

Iranians regained access to Facebook and Twitter following a one-day government-imposed ban last week, CNN News reports. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated that he had not called for the ban, adding that he believes “in maximum freedom of expression.”

The Iranian Labor News Agency reported that the government had imposed the ban in order to stem political advances of opposition parties that are using the new social networking technology to spread their messages in advance of the June 12 presidential election.

Reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and contender to President Ahmadinejad, created a Facebook page for his campaign. To date, his page has over 5,000 supporters.

Facebook responded to the Iranian sanctions, stating, “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in Iran may not have access to Facebook, especially at a time when voters are turning to the Internet as a source of information about election candidates and their positions.”

Iran and Web Proxies

charles — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:18:46 -0400

Iran’s Internet censorship regime is generally accepted to be one of the most aggressive in the world, yet according to the New York Times, by autumn 2008, more than 400,000 Iranians were able to access an uncensored web thanks to a software created by Chinese computer experts working for Falun Gong.

This software is not unique. Several other projects offer a similar product. The Tor Project offers software originally developed at the US Naval Research Lab that can be used to send messages secretly or reach blocked websites. Moreover, scientists at the University of Toronto have developed a program called Psiphon that enables users to evade firewalls using only a web browser.

A warning on Psiphon’s website indicates the substantial risk involved: “Bypassing censorship may violate law. Serious thought should be given to the risks involved and potential consequences.”

The software enables the end user to connect to a computer abroad and then redirects the request to a censored site.

Ultimately, computing limitations proved to be a temporary setback. By January 2009, Falun Gong servers lacked the power to continue provision to Iran, resulting in a shutdown of the service in all countries except China.

The Worst Places to be a Blogger

Jillian C. York — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:34:30 -0400

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has just released a list of the ten worst countries in which to blog. Topping the list is Burma, followed closely by Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, and Egypt.

In determining the list, CPJ's staff and outside experts looked at a number of variables, including whether or not bloggers have been jailed in the country, whether they face harassment or other reprisals, and whether or not they self-censor.

While the countries represented by CPJ's list are certainly the worst, they are not the only countries in which bloggers face harassment, attacks, or prosecution...by far. Countries as diverse as Morocco, Uzbekistan, and Russia have also detained bloggers and other online journalists for offenses such as "insulting national feeling" and "criticizing police."

By far the saddest case thus far this year has been that of Omidreza Mirsayafi, the Iranian blogger jailed for "insulting national feeling." Mirsayafi died in early March, less than one month after he was imprisoned.

Photo Credit:Pensiero

A Preview of our forthcoming Iran Blogosphere Study

sally — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:09:03 -0400

ONI has documented filtering in Iran in a number of studies over the past four years, demonstrating an increase in the extent of filtering. At the core of the issue is the impact of Internet filtering on the range of viewpoints available to people in countries that practice it. A fundamental problem in developing metrics for assessing filtering is the ‘denominator’ problem—it is difficult to define the relevant population of websites to study. We are currently exploring some interesting empirical approaches that may help in this regard. Later this spring, we will publish the results of a new study of the blogosphere in Iran that combines the empirical testing of Internet filtering with social network analysis. We present here a brief preview of the study.

The figures above show ONI data on Internet blocking in Iran projected onto a social network map of the Iranian blogosphere. The network map (courtesy Morningside Analytics) plots the top 6,000 Persian language blogs according to the links among them. In the diagram, every dot represents a blog. The size of the dot indicates the number of links received from other blogs in the network. Blogs are positioned by a “physics model” algorithm, in which a general force tries to move all blogs apart while a specific force draws together linked pairs of blogs, as though they were connected by a spring. In the resulting map, the Iranian blogosphere clusters into densely connected “network neighborhoods” of bloggers, who tend to be united by common interests and attitudes. The color of the blogs represents an analysis of each blog’s entire profile of links to all online resources (not just to other blogs but to such things as news sites and civil society organizations as well). Thus blogs that link to similar things are assigned to the same color-coded “attentive cluster.” The yellow and green cluster in the lower-left quadrant of the map contains reformist, secular and expatriate bloggers. The lower-right quadrant features three related clusters of conservative, Islamist bloggers. The upper quadrants contain blogs that are not overtly political, including poets on the left and a scatter of many topics (such as popular music, sports and Zoroastrianism) on the right.

The figure on the right shows blogs that are not blocked, and can be read inside Iran. The figure on the left shows blogs that are blocked, and not visible inside Iran. A couple of observations stand out: 1.) a large majority of the Iranian blogosphere is visible to Iranians; and 2.) most of the blocked blogs are in the “secular/reformist” corner of the network. While it is unsurprising that blogs from this group are disproportionately blocked, it is interesting to note that the majority of these blogs are not blocked. Also, a handful of blogs from religious, pro-regime parts of the network are blocked as well. A preliminary analysis of these indicates content (like anti-Arab bias and discussion of “temporary marriages”) that, while not unfriendly to the Islamic Republic, might nevertheless be embarrassing to it.

In a previous collaboration with Dr. Richard Rogers of Govcom.org, ONI data was used in conjunction with hyperlink analysis and crawling methods similar to what has been undertaken here to discover newly blocked websites.

ONI continues to analyze the content of these blogs, as well as looking in further detail at additional network and text data, to better grasp the nature and consequences of Internet blocking in Iran. Stay tuned for our report in the coming weeks. In the meanwhile, our colleagues at the Internet and Democracy project at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society have just released their own study of the Iranian blogosphere, which examines the social network map in greater detail. Also read about this study here, in yesterday’s New York Times.

Norooznews.ir: Yahoo email, messenger and group blocked in Iran

Helmi Noman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:40:39 -0400

ISPs in Iran were ordered to block Yahoo email, messenger, and group sites, reported Iranian Web site Norooznews.ir (Farsi).

The site added that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology refused to acknowledge the reports of the blocking which went into effect March 10.

Iranian news outlets reported last week that Iran's government might shut down the Internet on parliamentary election day, March 14. Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi denied the reports and described them as "rumors".

Iran seals offices of news Web site critical of president

Helmi Noman — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:48:53 -0400

Iran is reported to have sealed off the office of the popular news Web site baztab.com. The last item on the Web site carried the headline: "The wish of the presidential office was realised and Baztab's offices were sealed off", Reuters reported. According to Baztab (Farsi), the government put extreme pressure on the Judiciary and finally Tehran Prosecutor's Office sealed Baztab's office in Tehran because Baztab officials have refrained from updating the site.

The English and Farsi Web site which is apparently hosted by a Texas-based server, is known to be critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and was blocked in February 2007 for publishing "false" news which "violated the Constitution". Despite the ban, the site continued to be updated.

Earlier banning of the Web site was justified by the first open use of regulations adopted on 27 November 2006.

Reuters reported that "[r]ights groups and diplomats say there is a broad crackdown on dissenting voices in the Islamic state, which is under growing Western pressure over its disputed nuclear programme. The authorities deny such moves, saying they allow free speech."