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Porn, Death, and the Internet in Iran

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What is it with Iran? Do they want to alienate the entire world? As Violet Blue reports, Iran is getting ready to execute Web developer Saeed Malekpour for allegedly building and maintaining porn websites. What he really did was help write a script that’s part of generic Web photo uploader. At the same time, Iran boasts of further nuclear enrichment advances; seems to be attempting terrorist attacks; and is saber rattling in Persian Gulf. What do Iranian citizens think about this? It’s hard to say. Iran is continuing to censor the Internet.

For more than a week now, Iran has locked down almost all Internet services that use the HTTPS protocol for security. Google has confirmed that Iran started blocking such services as Gmail and YouTube starting on February 10th. This may have been to stop protests on the anniversary of the arrest of Green movement leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi on February 14th for contesting the results of the disputed 2009 presidential vote. In addition, Iran will be holding parliamentary elections on March 2nd.

Iran makes no pretense about trying to censor the Internet. Government officials say, for example, that Google offers Iranians “online criminal content.” Amin Sabeti, a British Iranian IT blogger, said the Iranian government wanted to create its own version of the Internet because it viewed the Internet as an enemy. According to the New York Times, Mr. Sabeti said, “One of the members of Iran’s Internet filtering council said Google is using SSL and we cannot monitor it, therefore we’ve blocked Gmail and Google’s services.”


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