BBC NEWS: Iran accused of blocking opposition communications

[SealLion]

Check it out:

More news on the home front on Iran.

This time it's about blocking access to information. Something that we all take for granted. Whether it's internet related or access to information that you request from some government authority.
Nevertheless, this news article is about the apparent suppression and or restriction of information.

According to Google, there are some user's in Iran that suppossedly cannot access their Gmail accounts.
Let's have a peek, shall we.....

The US has accused Iran of seeking a "near-total information blockade" to silence anti-government protesters.

well, first of all. Let's look at this thing one small bit at a time....

Disregarding for a moment whether or not Iran actually is blocking and or restricting access to it's populace (which could very well be true) , to have a country like the US, state that one country is blocking access to information while at the same time, while no-one's looking and never being honest to it's own population with respect to it's foreign activities and goals, at least from an outsider's perspective (it'd be nice if there were some Yanks posting here, you know.....), this is hypocrisy.
Iran may be restricting access, ok...that's one country out of a whole bunch.

Iran is not alone, yes?? Countries like Australia do the same thing.
The US restricts information too with respect to it's foreign relations game with other countries. That's been discussed here a few times.


There was an article that I posted here once from Wikileaks.org and it was about Internet restrictions taking place in Australia. Unfortunately, wikileaks is offline to raise funds...

anyways....

.....The US government said it had information that the telephone network was taken down, SMS messages blocked, and internet communication "throttled".

China and Burma have also been accused of blocking internet communication.

Well, the article doesn't state where specifically that information came from.

......."Iran has attempted a near total information blockade.

"And it is an unprecedented and overwhelming step, using force to intimidate their own people and to restrict the freedom of assembly and the freedom of expression.

Well, that is true and it would make sense with respect to this country's foreign relationship matters considering that ......

Iran's foreign relations are based on two strategic principles: eliminating outside influences in the region and pursuing extensive diplomatic contacts with developing and non-aligned countries. Iran maintains diplomatic relations with almost every member of the United Nations, except for Israel,...... and the United States since the Iranian Revolution

LINK

"It is clear that the Iranian government fears its own people."

He said his statement was based on US monitoring of communications within Iran.

Google said on Wednesday that Iranian users were having trouble accessing its Gmail service.

Reuters news agency quoted a Microsoft source as saying the company had not experienced any disruptions to its Hotmail service in Iran.

Well, that might be true with respect to the 1st sentence above. However, I can't understand why. Iran has a very educated population. Would not a government that fears it's own population restrict education to some degree.

Maybe it is true that the Iranian people fear their government as equally as that government fears it's own people with respect to uprisings. It could be true. However, Iran also has a thriving tourist industry (slated to increase by 10 %) as equally as it has a semi-developed economy.

Iran also has also apparently, a very developed biotechnology, nanotechnology, and pharmaceuticals industry.

Go to the link above for qualifying the information that I give here.

So you see, Iran is quite developed. And with being a developing nation, why would this statement be made with respect to Iranian government fearing it's own population.
I mean, with the kind of things that Iran has, the educational level, the economy in that growth, the tourist industry growing and so forth, I would tend to think that the people are happy and there-fore having nothing to fear from it's own government as equally as it's government would nothing to fear (as per the article's statement) from it 's own population, yes??

As for Microsoft stating that they didn't experience any disruptions in service. That could be explained because maybe one company dislodges itself from internet censorship while the other cooperates with internet censorship while doing business in Iran.
Make's sense, yes??

There is a lot more on the link below regarding this article. The video that is there is pretty shoddy and it looks like it's an amatuer shot.

Nevertheless, here's the link:

BBC News - Iran accused of blocking opposition communications

[slikrapid]

This time it's about blocking access to information...about the apparent suppression and or restriction of information.

looking at the amount of information & its sources considering the situation in iran on the bbc site one might come to the same conclusion, yet achieved by different means

you may notice that the videos are very short, with quite low amount of information in them, essentially providing images that have low usefulness to viewers - on the other hand the written information gives a different picture (government says, reporters mentioned, analysts say, another source reported,...) - a variety of opinions, mostly from some no-name or not quite identifiable sources with general descriptions, and we are supposed to take their word for it - whereas, at the same time actual genuine on-site reports from iran (from their people, institutions, reporters,...) are obviously missing and their side being symbolically represented by the aforementioned 'sad excuses' for videos - imo this is not something accidental, you cannot seriously expect to form an decent objective informed opinion based on lack of information from one side of the story/conflict

There was an article that I posted here once from Wikileaks.org and it was about Internet restrictions taking place in Australia.

in the meantime here are the comments on that one:

http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthre...threadid=17629

Well, the article doesn't state where specifically that information came from.

that may be one of the problems with journalism today, it tends to cover subjects without proper source quoting, so that we could know who is saying what (and may be able to verify the same with another source or the original one)

"It is clear that the Iranian government fears its own people."

actually this may be true for every government out there, since its powers essentially derive from the people and it is responsible to the people, thus the people can literally strip the government of its powers

one might say our whole legislative system is such a fear-based construction, one that an ordinary person can hardly handle, yet it affects every segment of his life, moreover, in order to apply it one needs special 'translators' called lawyers, furthermore there is evidence of intentional modification of the system code, so it benefits those that know about it (check 'cracking the code of commerce' & 'freeman society', for those interested) - another more common example is the plethora of governmental secrets hidden from the public usually in the name of some security reason, and the list goes on with religions & their secrets, secret societies, industrial agreements, patents,... all kept under keys accessible only to a privileged few, in fear from revealing the contents towards general public - as expected, in light of this, none of them will be truly in favor of a (full/core) transparency regarding their working area

as long as the general public is not aware of its own true power(s), ie. by being kept in the dark about how certain elements of the system work, by being scared into obedience by the restrictive enforcement units (police, military, bureaucracy) or religious systems,... the governments have less fear of the people - they may not openly admit it, but the government would choose to govern sheeple over (educated/informed/aware) people 'any day of the week'

However, I can't understand why. Iran has a very educated population. Would not a government that fears it's own population restrict education to some degree.

a good question, but as you surely noticed we don't get to hear what they have to say...at all?

then there are other issues (also of global relevance and controversy) like what exactly are they being taught in this so called education system, how do they treat those who oppose official viewpoints, whats their attitude towards (and existence/spread of) dogmas and so forth