Stories from Quick Reads and Farsi
Iran Increases Internet Surveillance Ahead of Parliamentary Elections
Iran's Deputy Interior Minister Zolfaghari announces heightened security in anticipation of upcoming elections.
An Election Film Week in Lebanon to Say #NoToExtension of Parliament Term
What better than the seventh art to mobilize? In another effort to push for Elections in Lebanon and prevent an extension of the Parliamentary term #NoToExtension, Lebanese NGO Nahwa Al Muwatiniya (meaning Towards Citizenship) held an “Election Film Week”. Six works from Chile, Iran, China, Ghana and the US, varying between documentaries...
Human Rights Video: 2013 Year in Review
A video by WITNESS on the Human Rights Channel of YouTube wrapped up some of the most significant protests and human rights abuses of 2013. Dozens of clips shot by citizens worldwide are edited together to show efforts to withstand injustice and oppression, from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, Cambodia to...
Iran: Facebook is ‘the most disgusting US spyware’
A high commander in Iran cyber police says Facebook is ‘the most disgusting spyware and the most dangerous warfare of the U.S.’ which is also ‘responsible for one third of divorces in Iran’. Facebook and other famous social networking websites are blocked by Iranian authorities. They blame this services as...
Iran: ‘Tehran Has More Than 1 million Facebook Users’
The deputy parliament speaker says Tehran has ‘more than 1 million Facebook users’ and there are more than 200,000 in other big cities of Iran like Shiraz and Rasht. Hasan Aboutorabi regrets that ‘such a potential space is in the hands of our enemy and they deploy all of its capacities against us.’
Iran: Police Looks For ‘Smart Control’ over Social Networking Sites
Iran's police Commander in Chief, Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam says police is looking for ‘smart control’ over social networking websites. He believes this ‘smart control’ is better than a full blocking and people may use their ‘useful parts’.
Iran: Tehran Launches Own YouTube
Iran has launched, Mehr (meaning affection in Persian),a video-sharing website to compete against YouTube.
Iran: A Blogger in Danger
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced that they are concerned about the health of Mohammad Reza Pourshajari, the jailed writer of the blog “Iran Land’s Report”. RSF says according to blogger's family “he is in a critical condition, suffering from kidney failure and aggravated by a lack of medical treatment”.
Iran: Bloggers Urge Minister of Education to Resign
A bus in southwestern Iran overturned in southwestern Iran on Friday, October 19. Several Iranian bloggers urged the Minister of Education to resign as ‘a minimum reaction to this tragedy’. Iranian cyberspace accused the Iranian authorities for being irresponsible about the lives of people.
Iran: Police is censoring ‘in affiliation with Facebook’
Commander in chief of Iran cyber police insists that the authorities would prosecute those who ‘promote immorality and prostitution’ in social network websites. Kamal Hadianfar claims [fa] that Iranian police would ‘purify’ this social network ‘with collaboration of Facebook managers’. Major social networking services including Facebook and Twitter are blocked in Iran.
Iran: Public wear influenced by social networking websites
A report from a state-run institute says 20 percent of women and 10 percent of men in Iran, choose their wear and public appearance due to the photos they see on social networking websites like Facebook, a deputy at Iran's ‘IT and digital media development center’ presented this report in...
Iran: Jailed lawyer plays with her son
In social networking websites Iranian users are sharing a video footage of jailed lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, when she tries to play with her 4 years old son through a cabin window in a prison visit. Mrs. Sotoudeh, a human rights activist in Iran, is sentenced to 11 years in prison...
Iran: #RememberIran in election anniversary
Iranian users in Twitter are sharing their ideas, memories, and feelings about Iranian 10th presidential election in June 2009, which resulted in protests called The Green Movement under the hash-tag #RememberIran. There are some tweets reminding that two protests leaders have been under house arrest for 480 days.
Iran: Top figure hails Facebook
Iranian former president and now head of The Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who is close to reformists says: ‘Today we see that a simple free page on Facebook is effective more than a set of TV and radio stations… And this is good for the world even if some...
Iran: ‘Cultural programs’ in social networks
Iran's Revolutionary Guardians'would hold cultural programs in Facebook and Twitter’, an official in IRGC says. This two major social networks are blocked in Iran and users can check them only with circumvention tools. Iranian authorities blame such websites for ‘promoting regime change’ in this country.
Iran: Successful campaign against lashes for cartoonist
An online campaign against lashes for Iranian cartoonist turned to be successful. Mahmoud Shokrayeh was sentenced to 25 lashes for a caricature of a local MP, Ahmad Lotfi. Iranian cartoonists launched a campaign on Facebook and cyberspace to draw Mr. Lotfi's cartoons in condemning this verdict. You can see some...
Iran: 28.5 millions have access to Internet
According to official statistics,28.5 millions of Iranians are estimated to have access to Internet connection in 1154 cities of Iran. This figures says more than 2.1 millions of this Iranian users have ADSL connection and the rest are connected via dial-up. Iranian government has restricting rules for Internet connection of...
Iran: Government prohibits ‘foreign’ mail services
Iran's minister of communications prohibited using ‘foreign’ mail services like Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and MSN, since he believes ‘they are tools for information leak’. Reza Taghipour has asked Iranian state offices, universities and companies to use Iranian mail services ‘which are hosted in Iran’.
Iran: Instagram users to lose access
A few hours after announcement on Facebook acquisition of famous mobile application Instagram, Iranian users are complaining about losing access to their older photos on the service. Mehrdad, based in Tehran, says [Fa]: ‘I can not load any image older than a couple of days without anti-filter tools’.
Iran: Electronic Curtain in Animation
Here is a video cartoon, portraying what Iranian users face in Iran for connecting to the Internet. The video invites online users around the world to follow #ConnectIran tag on twitter.
Iran: Earth Hour celebrated in Tehran
Iranians are going to celebrate the “Earth Hour” today Saturday 31st of March. Here in this Farsi-language website, Iranians are organizing the “Earth Hour” events, including turning-off lights for an hour ‘to protect the planet’. Parham, an Isfahan-based user, tweets: ‘They are going to turn off Si-o-se Pol (historical bridge)...
