[Editor's Note: A month-and-a-half after the June 12th presidential election, the echoes of that controversial vote continue to reverberate on the Iranian street. Over the same period, however, the Iranian regime has marshaled considerable resources to counteract, confront and quell the lingering domestic discontent. What follows is a survey of those efforts.]
Amid ongoing popular unrest, the Islamic Republic is moving to tighten its already-strict oversight of the World-Wide Web. Under a new law just ratified by the majles and approved by the country's powerful Guardian Council, the Iranian regime has imposed additional penalties for assorted "illegal" activities on the Internet, including "invasion of privacy" and the dissemination of loosely-defined "secret information." More significant still is a provision in the legislation which mandates that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) based in Iran store all data sent or received by their subscribers for a minimum of three months - providing these firms, and potentially the Iranian regime as well, with far greater ability to track Internet traffic and communications. (Tehran Press TV, July 20, 2009)
Iranian authorities are clamping down on the social networking tools used by protesters at the height of the unrest in Iran, turning them against their users. "A trusted colleague - who is married to an Iranian-American and would thus prefer to stay anonymous - has told me of a very disturbing episode that happened to her friend, another Iranian-American, as she was flying to Iran," writes Open Society Institute scholar Evgeny Morozov. "On passing through the immigration control at the airport in Tehran, she was asked by the officers if she has a Facebook account. When she said "no", the officers pulled up a laptop and searched for her name on Facebook. They found her account and noted down the names of her Facebook friends." The implications, Morozov says, are ominous: "it means that the Iranian authorities are paying very close attention to what's going on Facebook and Twitter (which, in my opinion, also explains why they decided not to take those web-sites down entirely - they are useful tools of intelligence gathering)." (foreignpolicy.com, July 10, 2009)
In an effort to more effectively control the domestic informational environment, the Islamic Republic has launched an unprecedented pressure campaign against journalists and media outlets. Regime security forces have forced some members of the media to pledge not to give interviews to other media sources - effectively imposing an "interview ban" at a time when outlets are reliant on one another for complete coverage of national events. Others have been intimidated and threatened by Pasdaran and Basij forces, with the goal of distorting reportage. “Journalists are put under pressure to connect popular gatherings to foreigners, criticize Mir-Hossein Mousavi, seyyed Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karoubi and to frame their statements and positions to be in line with agitators,” says one independent journalist. And opposition news outlets are not the only ones affected. The government crackdown has also spurred a feverish round of self-censorship among media outlets close to the regime. “The resignation and dismissal of a large number of journalists from media outlets close to the administration points to the extent of the pressure exerted on journalists," says Reza Moeini, the head of the Iran bureau of the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. "They are also under pressure and cannot work freely.” (Tehran Rooz, July 22, 2009)
The Iranian regime is compelling detained opposition activists to implicate leading reformists in illegal activities, according to Human Rights Watch. Citing a number of notable cases, the international humanitarian watchdog has charged that Iranian authorities are using coercion, including bodily harm, to force detainees to "frame" leading opposition politicians. Gholamhussein Mohseni Ejeie, Iran's minister of intelligence, confirmed to reporters in mid-July that the resulting confessions obtained under duress "could be made public" as a way of discrediting those politicians. (Human Rights Watch, July 21, 2009)