Von at Obsidian Wings has a fascinating and vigorous thread going over how/whether to debate the use of torture, all triggered by the Gonzales hearings and the new legal memo from the Justice Dept's Office of the Legal Counsel. But in Iran, bloggers are facing this dilemma personally in fact, not in theory. This extremely unsettling news from Iran via Hoder and Reporters Without Borders , has set me to more than just brooding, but to absolutely fulminating.
For the past several months, those of us who follow goings on in Iran have watched as the Iranian internal security and judiciary apparatus has been moving against individuals connected to blogging and internet services. They've been after the techies as often as anyone. The pressure has ratcheted up, with reports in December of not only arrests but also compelled "confessions" and torture. This Jan 6 2005 press release from Reporters Without Borders summarizes what's been happening. The page also has links to their previous articles on the situation.
In the past several days, the authorities now seem to have moved on to a full-fledged assault to shut down the entire infrastructure that supports the Persian social network that has built up on the internet. Since the theocrats attempt to monitor and control the most ordinary freedoms of speech, thought and association we take so for granted, the internet has been a rare open space available to Iranians. This is attested by the very high internet usage figures in Iran. For example, one commenter on a Joi Ito thread about the problem noted that Persians are the #3 demographic in Orkut. The reassertion of power by the hard-liners is extending to this space that expresses, by its very existence, a profound threat to what they stand for.
Hoder passes along the following disturbing report, as of Jan 6, which suggests that rather than trying to regulate the internet for disturbing content, the theocrats are trying to shut down the important social network spaces the internet creates.
Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling.
They have also ordered to filter Orkut, Yahoo Personals and some other popular dating and social networking websites.
For ISPs this means a big loss, since much of their recent sales have been because of people writing and reading blogs and surfing Orkut. So the government is effectively eliminating small and private ISPs by bankrupting them, whiteout [sic] paying a political price for it.
He goes on to list some of the actions that might be taken. In addition to technical means of circumventing the authorities, he says:
While still relevant and potentially effective, I believe they are not enough now.
The EU and the US must seriously consider demanding for an end to the Internet censorship during their negotiations with the Iranian government.
We also have to look for ways to beam Internet direcly to Iranian users in Tehran and other big cities via cheap satellite connections.
I call this "open access" and it's actually one of the projects a few friends and I are working on: to use millions of satellite dishes in Iranian houses to access the net, without interference of local ISPs.
According to BloggersWithoutBorders, it seems that Joi Ito, who asked a question about the availability of typepad and live journal and was answered by Hoder in an update to his post, has had his own site just banned, so there may be problems with following up with Hoder directly through his blog. Joi's blog has a growing thread of comments and trackbacks.
Today is just not the day for me to feel that "write your Congressman" is going to do much good -- with their attention absorbed in the current torture debate in the US, I find it difficult to imagine they'll get too wound up about what's going on in Iran. Or if they do get riled, it's going to be in a transparently hypocritical fashion that matches partisan agendas. This is, unfortunately, what happens when we allow our moral bearings to get knocked akilter, and what Lech Walesa meant a few weeks ago when he was quoted by the WSJ as saying:
[The Americans] are a military and economic superpower but not morally or politically anymore. This is a tragedy for us.Ah well. After I've simmered down, I'll brood on whether some other useful action might be undertaken.
A minor bit of laughter
Which brings me to our favorite brooding friend who, I am pleased to see, has reappeared in a splendid new year's edition, and brings us a taste of Persian humor that's LOL and, pun intended, deliciously funny .
I find I owe him an apology for being a tad cryptic in my end-of-the-year greetings. I told him to hum a sentimental little song without telling him the tune! For shame, since it's been covered by truly all of the greats, although primarily with the English lyrics by Johnny Mercer rather than the French original.
The first afoe European weblog awards