Babak Rahimi's claim, in "Cyberdissent: The Internet in Revolutionary Iran," is that in Iran over the last decade, the Internet has provided a creative way for political dissidents to challenge state authority, despite official efforts in recent years to curtail Internet use for such purposes. In addition to reviewing recent history of online dissent and conservative censorship in Iran, he also points to scholarly studies indicating that (despite Rahimi's hopefulness) authoritarian regimes may be effective in controlling the Internet. (Read more ... )
Rahimi describes an Iran that encouraged the use of the Internet from 1993, with most of Iran's domestic access through the academic institutions, and a population heavily skewed to the young, with significant growth in the number of university students (especially women). This produces a large community of educated Iranians, most unemployed, returning to their home communities and seeking means of expression. Rahimi cites figures for 1,500 Internet cafes in Iran, based on data at the World Bank Development Indicator.
For an example of how the Internet and the Web have connected rural villages, Rahimi points to the website of the Village of Shahkooh, (a delightful site, from which many US web designers could learn).
Rahimi cites reports of the BBC and Payvand News to the effect that some 20,000 websites and weblogs have enabled free and anonymous expression by young Iranians, especially women. These online communities have been able to bypass the cultural and political pressures regarding speech, appearance and mingling of genders that are applied offline.
Rahimi reviews the rise of the "May 23rd" reformist movement with potential to develop a democratic state for the Islamic Republic, countered by a conservative judiciary and clerical segment. There has evolved, says Rahimi, a tension between two spheres of political authority, the elected Majlis or parliament and presidency, and an appointed clerical office of Valayat-e Faqih.
Despite increasing instances of reformist writers, including senior clerics, using the Internet as an outlet for their political discontent, conservative elements in the Iranian judiciary have taken steps to block sites that they see as objectionable. These efforts began in 1997, and resulted in the blocking or closure of a number of popular sites that supported reformist viewpoints and the jailing of journalists and closure of certain traditional media sources. For a description of these activities through 2001, see A.W. Samii, "Sisyphus' Newstand: The Iranian Press Under Khatami". 5 Middle East Review of International Affairs 3 (2001).
These efforts intensified in March 2003 after the beginning of the war in Iraq. Rahimi reports (as of the paper's release in September of 2003) 100 websites blocked and 15,000 more expected to be banned, and arrests of journalists, including the April 2003 arrest of Sina Motallebi, a journalist behind a prominent weblog formerly available at www.rooznegar.com. Rahimi says that "the conservatives appear to be engaging in censorship methods similar to those that are being used in Cuba."
See Boas and Kalathil, "The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba and Counter-Revolution," (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Working Papers) in which the authors present the theory that authoritarian regimes may be able to effectively control and profit from the Internet.
Despite Boas and Kalathil's concerns, Rahimi concludes with a note that regulating the Internet will be "an extremely difficult task for the conservative authorities," and that "any attempt to stop the proliferation of modern technology is ultimately bound to fail.".
Rahimi's paper, "Cyberdissent: The Internet in Revolutionary Iran," originally published in Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal (VOL. 7 No. 3 - September 2003), was first mentioned here at: Unintended Consequences: BloggerCon: Dissent in Iran as "Revolutionary" Application of Blogs
Dear Simpson,
I thank you very much for you review of my article.
If you or anyone has any questions with regard to the article, please contact me:
brahimi77@yahoo.com
Best wishes
Babak rahimi