BS: Iran- women and human rights, now

Subject: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:32 PM

Iranian Activists Criticize New Restrictions on Web Sites

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 21, 2008; Page A09


TEHRAN, May 20 -- Iranian bloggers and activists on Tuesday condemned a move by a government panel to block access to several Web sites related to women's issues and human rights.

"It's like a big attack," said Parvin Ardalan, who works for http://www.change4equality.net, a Tehran-based feminist Web site affected by the new restrictions. "Now, most sites related to women's and human rights issues have been blocked in one day," she said.

Ardalan's site is part of a campaign to collect 1 million signatures aimed at pressuring the government to change what activists call discriminatory laws against women. "The authorities want to silence us," she said.

Web sites maintained by opposition groups, dissidents and even some supporters of the government have been blocked in the past. Iran also bars access to thousands of Web sites that show pornography.

The Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture's supervisory board for the media notified Iranian Internet service providers Saturday about the new restrictions, which affected dozens of sites, according to a report Tuesday in Ettemaad-e Melli, a newspaper in Tehran that is often critical of the government.



The supervisory board answers to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, which determines the country's educational, scientific, cultural and social objectives. The 36-member council sets parameters for what is allowed on the Iranian Internet, but the board decides which sites should be blocked. It is unclear who sits on the board, although its members are thought to include representatives of the judiciary, the intelligence service and other government agencies.

The board has in the past effectively banned Web sites supportive of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Access to a blog by the wife of government spokesman Ghollam-Hossein Elham was restricted this year. Elham said that access was blocked because of his wife's critical articles about Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and powerful anti-Ahmadinejad politician.

"The limits of the filtering are pornography and anti-revolutionary sites. This is illegal censorship," Elham said to the Khorasan newspaper in April.

The blog is now accessible in Iran, but some other sites supportive of the government remain blocked.

"Newspaper censorship, social oppression and filtering are not logical unless you look at them as sub-parts of overall oppression," said Asieh Amini, a journalist and activist in Tehran. Her blog, http://varesh.blogfa.com, has been blocked since Saturday.

From 1999 to 2005, Iran's judiciary closed dozens of newly founded newspapers critical of the government, prompting many journalists to move to the Web.

In 2003, Iranian authorities started restricting access to Web sites, a technique which can be bypassed by filter breakers or other tools to avoid digital censorship. These programs are slow, and filtered Web sites lose many readers.

According to Iranian blogging services, last year there were more than 700,000 blogs in Farsi, many of which are written from abroad.

"It makes one really depressed to see his or her site being filtered, but it also shows that the authorities are afraid," said Jadi Mirmirani, a human rights activist.

"It means: we do not tolerate any alternative news sources or any new ideas."

Subject: RE: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 08 - 02:31 PM

The boldest move we could make would be to blanket the nation with a Voice-of-America style wireless broadband network that anyone with a laptop and wioreless card could access...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:11 PM

Google "Cleanfeed" and figure out what a government in the USA or UK that wanted to suppress dissent could use it for...

Subject: RE: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:57 PM

It's impossible even to imagine this kind of thing even arising in Saudi Arabia, which makes Iran look like a haven for womens rights.

Subject: RE: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 08 - 12:16 PM

I've been talking to my good friend, Ahmadinejad, BB. He says you are becoming a real annoyance with all your fear-mongering threads about Iran all the time. They have made up a list of the 10 most annoying people on the face of the Earth right now...people who really need to be dealt with severely...and you are on that list. Yessiree. ;-) Your name is fourth on that list! Do you realize what this means? The deadly power of the Iranian regime, soon to threaten the life of every human being in the entire world, is turning its attention to YOU! Yes, Bearded Bruce, you are scheduled to be "dealt with" right after Woody Allen, O.J.Simpson, and Paris Hilton (they're just ahead of you on Ahmadinejad's list of "absolutely intolerable people who cannot be permitted to continue annoying Iran and the world in general").

So, here's my advice. Watch carefully in the news for what's going on with Woody Allen, O.J.Simpson, and Paris Hilton. As long as they are still okay, you're still okay. But the moment they're gone....! That will be the moment, BB, that the devilish and altogether inhuman and just awfully, awfully nasty powers of the Iranian regime will be reaching out across the Atlantic Ocean to get YOU!!!!!

And Canada will not risk itself trying to help you, either.

I'd lie low for awhile till this whole thing blows over if I were you. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Iran- women and human rights, now
From: akenaton
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:56 PM

That post is one of the reasons I like you so much LH.
Gentle but firm,with just the right touch of dry humour.

I wonder if our friend BB understands?