I’m still getting traffic from Tehran but that may change:
Beginning today, all websites with Iran-related content will have to register with the Islamic Republic’s Internet vetting body before web users inside the country can view them.
The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance made the announcement on Sunday. The new rule is in accordance with the decision by the government in November to restrict websites that had not registered with the ministry.
“The new rule will probably be difficult to implement and seems designed above all to give the authorities grounds to close down independent news sites”, the international press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in November.
“It will be impossible to force the tens of thousands for websites dealing with Iran, most of which are hosted on servers abroad, to register with the authorities. But this rule could serve as pretext for arbitrarily closing or filtering news websites. It will give a legal basis for the online censorship that already exists in Iran”, it said.
Of course, their efforts are futile. They’ve known that for quite some time:
Local media as relayed by the German DPA agency reported the 70-year-old cleric, favourite to win 17 June presidential elections, as telling a gathering of Iranian film and music artists, that Iran was in the era of “data transfer” and that authorities were powerless to stop the “explosive flow” of information. “Therefore the mechanism of censorship and physical control is no longer working.” The conservative clergy in Iran has in the last eight years ordered the closure of almost 100 publications and political websites. But Rafsanjani said “today’s censorship system is either useless or has a reverse effect, therefore we need new mechanisms”.
This does illustrate the threat that information poses to the tyrants in Iran and the importance of getting it into the hands (or screens) of the Iranian people. They can fight it all they want but they won’t be able to stop the flow of information.
