Iran at the ‘Lowest Tier’ of Internet Freedom in the World

Freedom House released its annual report on internet freedom worldwide on Wednesday, October 14, again naming Iran as one of the worst countries with the least internet freedom.

The American civil society organization noted in its report the suppression of protesters during November 2019 in Iran, stating that the Islamic Republic government cut off citizens’ access to the internet to suppress the protests.

In late November 2019, following the spread of street protests in over one hundred Iranian cities sparked by protests against a tripling of gasoline prices, access to global internet was reduced to approximately five percent for at least five days.

Freedom House noted in its report that while some governments have increased internet control and censorship under the pretext of the coronavirus pandemic, Iran, Russia, and China have disregarded citizens’ privacy and, under the guise of maintaining security, have access to users’ sensitive information.

The Freedom House report also expressed concern about moves in China and Iran to build domestic internet and cut off connections with the free world.

In the past year, Iran has made several attempts to shut down the internet. In July of this year, when tens of thousands of Iranians on social networks called with the hashtag “Do Not Execute” for the cancellation of executions of three November 2019 protesters, the Islamic Republic again disrupted the internet.

On July 27 as well, coinciding with another round of protests in several Iranian cities, the internet was shut down again.

Some analysts say that shutting down the internet in a country of 80 million people is the first such case in the world of effectively isolating an advanced and developed internet network and developing a domestic internet in a country.

Iran’s government has been trying for years to implement a plan to separate domestic internet (intranet) from the global internet, mostly for security reasons and under the name of the “National Network.”

Based on estimates by the Islamic Consultative Assembly Research Center, approximately 19 trillion tomans has been spent creating a national internet until last year.

In this regard, the head of the Iranian parliament’s domestic affairs commission stated on September 2 that in the draft document of the 25-year Iran-China cooperation agreement, the issue of national internet is also “mentioned under the title of cooperation between the two countries in developing cyberspace.”

The draft 25-year Iran-China cooperation document, which was approved by the Iranian government on June 20, was among controversial documents that were harshly criticized by some critics of the Rouhani government as well as opponents of Iran’s government.

Meanwhile, Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, also said on December 8 that the national information network would be strengthened so much that “people would not need to go abroad to meet their needs.”

However, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, claims that “the national internet is a big lie and a lie that has been repeated many times.”

Based on reports from other international organizations, Iran’s government is also among the most active governments in cyber repression.

Based on a report published by Reporters Without Borders on March 11 of last year, Iran’s “Supreme Council of Cyberspace” is one of the main institutions of cyber repression.

This council, which was established by order of the leader of the Islamic Republic and is the primary authority responsible for internet decision-making, uses methods of “controlling the internet and selective access restriction, filtering news websites and applications such as Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter” for cyber repression.

Source: Radio Farda