Impunity Watch: Special Features: Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Blog No Evil?

Internet and the Censorship Age: Iran

Part 1

By Jeff Nelson

I am sitting across the street from the museum under construction: the name reads "The Newseum" a museum dedicated to free speech and free press. Earlier this year on the Syracuse University campus I watched the S.I. Newhouse School open its third building, this one dedicated to the First Amendment and its protection of free speech and free press. Both events heavily contrast with a society in other countries that can easily be compared to the novel, 1984, by George Orwell. The novel depicts the lengths governments use censorship and other means to stifle the free flow of thought on what American Jurists call the "Marketplace of Ideals."

The greatest and most recent examples of censorship spawn from Pakistan as the people battle political turmoil. Pakistan is not the only country where people face the constant governance of thought and ideas by the governing institution. China long known for its censorship of the media, internet, and political challenges maintains a stronghold on access to its people and their access to information: all in the name of governing the nearly two billion people. Iran censoring books and internet blog sites to stifle the political discourse that stirs within its borders. There are many more countries where freedom of speech and freedom of press are not very free or do not exist.

So much can be said about every country. However, only a few words shall be dedicated to each of the above mentioned cases. I will start with Iran. Probably a favorite of people to criticize for many reasons, but one of the deserved reasons is its censorship. Now I am in no position to criticize the religious leadership for censoring items based on whether a book is lewd because it talks about sex or racy material. I am not an expert on the Islamic religion. However, I do not have to be an expert to recognize the impunity with which the press and other forms of information are censored or bullied into keeping other points of view out. Free speech and free press are stifled by government censorship.

The Iranian government is constantly working with internet providers to block sites that contain sexual and politically critical material or provide social networking capabilities. Blogs and websites that are critical of the government have been blocked. It's gotten to the point that even President Ahmadinejad's blog was blocked along with Google, mistakenly for a day. The president of Iran keeps a blog, surprisingly on which the government has allowed some critical comments. Nevertheless, other bloggers in Iran have been subject to arrest and sentencing for making critical comments about the government online.

Journalists and news sources are pressured from the government into self censorship. Besides the publicity brought to other bloggers and journalists arrested for publishing controversial thoughts or news, the government has employed other tactics. One such tactic is to arrest an offending journalist, have them tried and convicted in court, but instead of going to jail after being sentenced they are let go. A form of reminder to the journalists that they are being monitored and one more slip up they will be put in prison alongside their colleagues. If put in prison, they would face an unknown fate. Stories have been reported about journalists who were jailed, tortured, and died while in prison, but even those are kept censored by the government because Iran would not want any false news to be published.

I sit here and wonder if this blog post will be blocked in Iran. Will the government censor our site Impunity Watch? Will they stifle the voices of the people who may be experiencing impunity? This whole blog was created for the purpose of giving those people a voice. What can be done to make sure those people keep that voice?

I will continue discussion of this issue focusing on at least two other countries: China and Pakistan. Censorship of ideas, censorship of information, and censorship of people...

For more information:

Impunity Watch, Cause of Iranian Student Death Questionable , January 26, 2008.

The Los Angeles Times, Unlikely Forum for Iran's Youth , January 2, 2008.

allAfrica.com, Africa: Press Freedom Round-Up 2007 , January 2, 2008.

Star Tribune, Iran's president gets personal in blog , December 15, 2007.

CBS News, Free Speech In Iran: Crime And Punishment , October 15, 2007.

The Economic Times, Iran blocks Google access , September 17, 2007.

The Christian Science Monitor, Rising Censorship Among World's Oil Powers , Page 3, May 24, 2007.

Global Information Network, Rights-Iran: Bloggers Rebel at New Censorship , January 10, 2007.

Global Information Network, Iran: Govt's Internet "Filtering" Looks a lot Like Censorship , November 27, 2006.