Ashkan Parsa
It is a while that Basij organization has been confronting with the following choices: the choice between keyboard or gun, street investigations or websites and weblogs investigations, organized demonstration in front of western embassies and anti-regime houses or producing organized concepts in the borderless world of internet. Some of them have made their final decision by choosing keyboards as a replacement for baton and gun; however even in this new world they aimed at quarrels.
For Basij Forces, Internet is the battlefield for fighting with some powerful enemies and not a peaceful space for cultural interactions. They assume each comment posted on their weblogs to be an arrow shot toward their virtual enemies and their expressions sometime resembles their batons.
Like in the real world, they shout at weblogs in order to make other hear them, and their final goal is conquering the invisible rifle-pit in a virtual war. The battle in which has been prescribed by their authorities and they assumed themselves as devotee soldiers.
The Final Attempts
Keeping internet speed down, filtering the anti-government and dissidents' websites, threatening and arresting the independent Internet activists and so many other barriers, couldn't lessen the importance of internet among Iranian youth generations.
Internet in the recent years has transferred to an incompatible popular media among the middle class youths. The development of social network in this media has been a great help in progressing the organizing power of civil society and therefore it has altered to a big alarm for the government.
The disappointed governmental theorists due to continuous failures in reducing the importance of internet, has made their final attempt by organizing the pro-government weblogs in order to dominate the Cyberspace in Iran. The governmental blogging project is a branch of the strategy called "quarreling soft war."
According to this strategy, pro-government blogs must contain influential concepts and contents to neutralize the oppositions' works. Some reports show that the governmental bloggers receive high payments for their activities in Cyberspace.
According to one of these reports Basij forces are receiving around 60 dollars for each subject they post in their blogs. The reliability of these reports cannot be fully assured, yet according to the enormous budget which has been allocated to this field by Iranian government it is probable.
Continuous Failures
The project of employing Basiji forces for blogging with organized concepts started before the presidential election. The first time was on the November of 2007 that Basij organization called Internet as one of the weapons of soft war and reported on setting up 10 thousand weblogs with religious concepts and contents by its members.
Basij organization on that time claimed that it'll dominate the Persian Cyberspace; however the changes after presidential election in the last year showed the failure in their anticipation.
In the period of presidential campaigns and the events following the disputed election, Internet activists made a wonderful usage out of it which made international observers to name Green Movement as the first technologic movement's experience in the world.
At the first step, in order to disaffect the opponents' movement, the authorities implement some policies like filtering websites, lowering the internet speed, threatening the internet activists, hacking some opponent websites. However all these policies weren't enough and satisfactory for governmental theorists.
After the shocks resulted from movements in opposition to the result of last year's presidential election, it was followed by the project of entering Basij to the field of blogging more seriously. And in the last February Mohammadali Naeeni, the cultural- social secretary of Basij declared that "this organization has expanded its connection with the head of pro-revolution bloggers in the entire country and therefore the process of creating subjects and producing content in Basij is passing its complementary stage. "
Lots of gatherings, seminars, and games with the subjects like "Basij from the view point of Guardianship", "the role of Basij in power and security of country", "Basij and the velvet revolution" were held. On the other hand training courses with topics like "social network, mental operation and internet intelligent protection" was established for volunteer Basij staff. The outcome of these trainings was creation of weblogs which their concepts and frames are following special dictated norms.
Get money, Run a Blog
Basij bloggers maintain their especial literature in the Cyberspace. Quarreling with opponents, threatening and using inappropriate expression is the key core of their writings. You can easily find a central track of thoughts and ideas in their writing which invite all people to having similar thoughts. The main subjects of most of their blog posts are complementing the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Some blogs basically have been designed with such an intention. All poems, stories and memories are about the Iranian leader who actually plays the main role in the shape of a wise, knowledgeable and undefeatable hero who defeats his enemies one after the other and caused astonishment. Other Basiji blogs are not very much different, but for many of them other structures have been prescribed.
These weblogs can be categorized in two groups. One that are functioning as advertisement for regime and their aim is demonstrating a positive role for Islamic Republic of Iran and its leader and the other group is focused on anti-regime activists, and in their websites all kinds of accusation against the opposition can be considered.
However the blogging project as a combating method for Basij in the cyber space hasn't fulfilled the Basij leaders' satisfaction. Having a look at the content of these blogs will reveal so many things.
For example, the owner of a blog named "the soldiers of Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei" posted his conversation with one of top leaders in Basij named "Saeed Ghasemi". In this post he explained that when he talked about his weblog to this leader, he reproached him since he believed that blogging is the responsibility of female staffs of Basij and that he had to spend his time for practical trainings. However, this blogger continued updating his blog after this conversation which may reveal a disagreement among the Basij's high ranking commanders about the blogging activities of their members.
Another example of disagreement can be observed about the blogging project related to the advantages of financial matters. This disagreement was discovered in a comment posted by "Jahad-e-Majazi" (Virtual Jihad)blog in which the blogger complained about allocating a huge amount of budget to a group of blogs run by Basij forces and in following declared that a considerable budget has wasted in the project of entering Basij to the Cyberspace.
This weblog has disclosed that in this project: 600 thousand dollars per year is allocated for social networks, 55 thousand dollars for 10 news per day, and 700 dollars for updating weblogs has been allocated. Furthermore, this post reports about the allocation of further budget for Basij blogging project. In the last attempt, the Basij organization planed for entering 2000 Hawza Students to the Cyberspace.
However, despite all these attempts the designers of this project are not satisfied. The cultural secretary of Basij several months ago while declaring his dissatisfaction of Basij outcomes, confessed that the staff of this organization doesn't have a clear understanding of the virtual space and Ahmadi Moghaddam, the head of Iran Police last year demanded for more involvement of religious people in Cyberspace.
On one hand these overwhelming invitation from Basij staff to increase their involvement in Cyberspace and on the other hand, the report of International Institute which named Iran as one of the central enemies of internet, reveals contradictory policies from Iranian authorities toward occupying the Cyberspace.
Iranian authorities have done their best to begrudge Independent Internet activists from all the facilities and however on the contrary they have offered tempting facilities to their forces. Nevertheless this policy hasn't helped government in dominating the Persian concepts in Cyberspace. It is the untamed characteristic of Internet that led Iranian government to continuous failures in their project of Basij entrance to cyberspace and it is so likely that in near future they left keyboards and go back to their batons and guns.
احسان نوروزی، دویچهوله
Between the Bars نام پروژهای در دانشگاه صنعتی ماساچوست است که بر اساس آن زندانیان میتوانند پستهای وبلاگی خود را از طریق نامه به دست مسئولان این پروژه برسانند، تا در یک وبلاگ گروهی منتشر شود.
پروژه Between the Bars پلتفرمی وبلاگی برای یک درصد از شهروندان آمریکایی فراهم کرده؛ برای ۲/۳ میلیون شهروندی که به دلایل گوناگون باید در پشت میلههای زندان روزگار بگذرانند. این پروژه توسط چارلی دیتار، دانشجوی دانشگاه صنعتی ماساچوست (MIT) و بنجامین ماکوهیل، از پژوهشگران ارشد این دانشگاه راهاندازی شده و مرکز «رسانههای شهروندی برای آینده» در دانشگاه MIT هم از آن حمایت کرده است. گروهی از مشاوران حقوقی دانشگاه MIT نیز با این پروژه همکاری میکنند.
هدف آنها از اجرای این پروژه «کمک به انتشار داستانهای انسانهای زندانی» است و طراحان آن معتقدند اجرای آن پلی میسازد میان زندانیان و کسانی که در آن سوی دیوارهای زندان زندگی میکنند، به زندگی کسالتبار و طاقتسوز پشت میلهها بهبود میبخشد و در درازمدت به افزایش امنیت اجتماعی و جلوگیری از انجام اعمال مجرمانه کمک خواهد کرد.
Between the Bars همچنین میتواند به حل یکی از معضلات مزمن زندانیان در سراسر جهان نیز کمک کند: گریز از مشارکت اجتماعی در اثر انزوای بلندمدت و زندگی نامتعارف در پشت میلههای زندان.
از آنجایی که زندانیان آمریکایی – جز در شرایط خاص – اجازه دسترسی به اینترنت را ندارند، با اسکن کردن نوشتهها و ارسال پستی آن میتوانند از خدمات این پروژه بهرهمند شوند. اما مشکل اینجاست که نبود دسترسی به اینترنت، امکان آگاهی از وجود چنین پلتفرمی را هم از زندانیان آمریکایی سلب میکند.
به همینخاطر، دیگر شهروندانی که زندانی خاصی را میشناسند و میدانند که به نوشتن علاقمند است، میتوانند او را با ارسال ایمیل به مسئولان این پروژه معرفی کنند تا فرم ثبتنام و اطلاعات کامل از طریق پست عادی برای فرد زندانی ارسال شود.
پل آنلاینی میان زندان و جهان خارج از زندان
نسخه دستنویس زندانیان به همان صورتی که فرستاده شده روی وبسایت Between the Bars قرار میگیرد. کاربران داوطلب میتوانند برای تهیه نسخه تایپ شده این نامهها با این پروژه همکاری کنند تا هم یافتن این نوشتهها از طریق موتورهای جستجوی آنلاین ممکن شود و هم کسانی که با خواندن نسخههای دستنویس و اسکنشده مشکل دارند، بتوانند از آن استفاده کنند.
“شخص زندانی، مرتکب هر جرمی هم که شده باشد، نمیتوان حق اندیشیدن و ابراز نظر آزادانه را از او سلب کرد. ما برای تامین این حق اساسی زندانیان و نیز انسانیتر کردن تصویر زندانیان در ذهن عمومی جامعه میکوشیم”
کامنت گذاشتن در این وبسایت مستلزم ثبتنام و ساخت اکانت است، اما مسئولان پروژه کامنتهای ثبت شده زیر هر مطلب را چاپ و از طریق پست برای زندانی بلاگر ارسال میکنند. به این ترتیب زندانیان میتوانند به واسطه این سرویس آنلاین، با همنوعان خود در خارج از زندان تعامل داشته باشند.
پستها بر اساس نام زندانیان در این وبسایت طبقهبندی میشود تا دسترسی به همه پستهای یک زندانی با یک کلیک میسر شود. نوشتن با نام مستعار ممکن نیست و همه زندانیان باید با هویت واقعی خود بنویسند. بنیانگذاران پروژه میگویند مستعارنویسی آنها را از اهداف اساسی پروژه دور خواهد کرد.
چارلی دیتار درباره این پروژه میگوید: «شخص زندانی، مرتکب هر جرمی هم که شده باشد، نمیتوان حق اندیشیدن و ابراز نظر آزادانه را از او سلب کرد. ما برای تامین این حق اساسی زندانیان و نیز انسانیتر کردن تصویر زندانیان در ذهن عمومی جامعه میکوشیم.»
دامون لاهیجی
در ایرانی که از میان ۱۷۸ کشور دنیا، در مقام ۱۷۵ آزادی مطبوعات قرار دارد، محبوب بودن، اصلاحطلب بودن و ۹ ساله شدن چیزی نزدیک به غیرممکن است، اما هفتهنامه چلچراغ به این رکورد دست یافت و حالا جامعه مطبوعات ایران داغدار خاموشی این نشریه تاثیرگذار نسل سوم، به حکم هیات نظارت بر مطبوعات است.
چلچراغ در سال ۱۳۸۱ توسط فریدون عموزاده خلیلی راهاندازی شد. این نویسنده سمنانی که از پایهگذاران ادبیات و مطبوعات کودک و نوجوان پس از انقلاب ۵۷ به شمار میرود، پیش از آن سالها یکی از سردبیران سروش نوجوان بود. عموزاده خلیلی اولین روزنامه نوجوانان تاریخ مطبوعات ایران به نام «آفتابگردان» را هم منتشر کرد و با پیروزی اصلاحطلبان در سال ۷۶ پا در وادی سیاست گذاشت و عضو جبهه مشارکت شد.
اما در انتخابات مجلس ششم در حوزه انتخابیه سمنان موفق نشد و دوباره به عرصه مطبوعات بازگشت. چلچراغ در سال ۱۳۸۱ متولد شد و در فضای پر شور مطبوعاتی آن سال ها که از آن با عنوان «بهار مطبوعات» یاد میشد، برش جوان و نوجوان از کیک بزرگ مخاطبان مطبوعات ایرانی را نشانه رفته بود.
نامهایی مثل علی میرمیرانی، آرش خوشخو و منصور ضابطیان هسته اولیه تحریریه را تشکیل میدادند و فرشاد رستمی سر و شکل متفاوت و جوانپسندی به گرافیک نشریه داده بود. لوگوی متفاوت این نشریه هم کاری از بهراد جوانبخت بود که در سایه محبوبیت و تاثیرگذاری چلچراغ، برند معتبری شد.
چلچراغ برای مدتی طولانی یکهتاز محبوبیت و تیراژ در مطبوعات جوانپسند بود و بارها دیگران را به فکر تقلید و یا رقابت انداخت. نقش پررنگ مخاطبان در نشریه و صفحات پرتعداد طنز و کاریکاتور با حضور ابراهیم رها (علی میرمیرانی)، امیرمهدی ژوله و بزرگمهر حسینپور، طرفداران پر و پاقرصی برای چلچراغ رقم زد و اگرچه روایت ها درباره تیراژ آن متفاوت و متضاد است، اما گفته میشود که به سودآوری مالی هم رسید.
با این همه، وقتی ورق در عرصه سیاست برگشت، چلچراغ هم مانند سایر مطبوعات اصلاحطلب زیر فشارهای طاقتفرسای سیاسی و اقتصادی قرار گرفت. مدیریت نشریه طی این سالها به صورتی عجیب و شگفتآور کشتی دلبندش را از گزند طوفان توقیف در امان نگه داشت اما با کوچ تیم اولیه تحریریه و حتی نسل دوم آنها به مطبوعات دیگر و خارج از کشور، نشریه از لخاظ کیفی دچار اوج و فرود فراوانی شد.
به طوری که با حضور رقبای متمولتر و گاهی باکیفیتتر عرصه را واگذار کرد، اما همچنان تنها نشریه اصلاحطلب ایران بود که خوانندگانش از طیف جوان بودند و به چهرههای مختلف هنری، ادبی و سیاسی مغضوب و کمرنگ شده از سوی جریان رسمی مطبوعاتی تریبون می داد. از جمله همین چندی پیش بود که سید محمد خاتمی برای سالگرد تولد آن یادداشتی نوشت.
اما سکانبانی متبحرانه فریدون عموزاده خلیلی به سرانجام نرسید و در اولین شماره سردبیری بزرگمهر حسین پور پس از حضور کوتاه مدت امیرمهدی ژوله در این سمت، خبر رسید که «نشریه چلچراغ به دلیل انتشار مطالب خلاف عفت عمومی و اصرار بر تخلفات، مشمول بند ۲ و تبصره ۲ ماده ۶ قانون مطبوعات شناخته و مقرر شد به استناد تبصره ماده ۱۲ قانون مطبوعات، نشریه توقیف و مراتب جهت پیگرد قانونی به مراجع قضایی ارسال شود.»
گویا دلیل هم نه مصاحبه با محمدرضا شجریان، یادداشت خاتمی و نگاه اصلاح طلبانه بلکه مطالب طنز این نشریه و طرح ساسی مانکن بر روی جلد بوده است.
تحریریه چلچراغ که در بحبوحه صفحه بندی شماره آینده ظهر روز دوشنبه اول آذر ۸۹ با این خبر هولناک مواجه شدهاند، همچنان کار خود را ادامه میدهند و به کورسوی رایزنیهای مدیریت امیدوارند. اما رویه قلع و قمع مطبوعات نشریات نشان داده که چندان نمیتوان امیدوار بود.
Amin Sabeti
On this second investigative seasonal report on the situation of filtering in Iran, we will have a look at censorship in the last summer (2010). We can name the last summer as "the season of organized filtering commencement", which was a big step toward creating the national internet or the so-called Intranet. (Read the 1st seasonal report: Spring, the Season to Kill Blogosphere)
June & July 2010
June 24: the Reporters Without Borders organization (RSF) has settled the first "Anti-censorship Shelter" in Internet. Its goal was announced to be helping the users to overcome the censorship barriers, how to remain anonymous in the Cyberspace and protecting user's electronic connections.
June 27: according to a report by "Iran Global" website, more than 25 websites belonged to Baha'is were filtered. These website were active in defending the Baha'is rights in Iran.
July 1: Iranian Engineers’ Club website which got filtered at 13th of April, got unblocked.
July 18: SubScene website, a center for downloading the English movies and series subtitles was filtered.
July 24: the Persian version of Wikipedia (the free Encyclopedia) was filtered.
July 26: the Persian version of Wikipedia got unblocked without any explanation about the reason of this filtering.
July 29: the VPN protocol was closed for some of Internet service providers (ISPs) and some of users were unable to connect their VPNs.
August 2010
August 1 & 2: cloob.com manager was arrested. He was accused of not respecting to filtering, publishing illegal content on his website and not paying attention to juridical-security- and police orders and demands. He got trialed however was acquitted from all his accusations regarding his declarations in the court.
August 5: the old filtering page was replaced by a new one which has a very different design. In this new page users are automatically redirected to one of suggestive links in this page after 26.5 seconds.
August 8: the managing director of Iran Telecommunication Infrastructure Company announced a mass filtering plan for all the internet service providers and added that this mass filtering will be implemented via a "gateway" by a domestic company. In the same date the Dehkhoda Persian Dictionary website was filtered due to posting a critical poem written by Iraj Mirza.
August 12: the Creative Commons– a web site active in the field of copy rights of published works in Internet- was filtered. Also, the same happened to Iran Green Media (RASA) only one week after its emergence.
August 14: Shahr.ir website associated to Tehran Municipality as well as sardabir.ir and RSS News were all filtered. In addition, the Professors against Plagiarism a blog which serves as a campaign against scientific frauds was filtered without any reason. However it is believed that publishing a critical letter to the Ministry of Industries and mines by a university professor is the reason.
August 19: Masumeh Ebtekar's weblog was filtered based on juridical order. Ebtekar is one of the reformist activists and the ex- head of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran.
August 20: Shiatube website was filtered as well but less than 24 hours got freed from the black list. This website described itself as the introducer of Islam and Prophet Mohammad enemies.
August 26: Photodom website was filtered. This website publishes best quality photos in various subjects.
August 28: the filtering page ranked 18 amongst the most visited websites –in a place higher than Fars news agency (ٔRead more by followِٔing this link: )
September 2010
September 1: Internet connection via VPN was interrupted in many Internet service providers such as Pars Online, Asia Tech, and Shuttle.
September 2: Accessing to email services such as Gmail and yahoo mail was very difficult. Moreover the AzadCyber website which works in the field of filtering and freedom of expression online focused on Iran was filtered.
September 6: Azarbayejan Khabarlar news website was filtered for the fourth time.
September 10: In this date "Haystack project" which was called as a revolution in the field of removing filtering barriers ended its activities without any contribution or further progression for Iranian users in order to overcome filtering barriers.
September 12: The "Kermanshah post" news website was filtered.
A look at the margins of Summer 2010
On 30th of June 2010, some users reported about not having access to Friendfeed websites for several minutes. And on 21st of August 2010, some users reported a temporary access to Radio Zamane and Jadid Online websites.
A Persian expression which in English means "who" has been filtered. Therefore, if your keywords contain it while using a searching engine you'd be faced with filtering page. Example, if someone types "who has invited the electricity" the result would be the filtering page!
Alireza Shirazi, the manager of Blogfa has criticized the new filtering page and regarded it as a violation of the privacy of internet users in Iran.
It's been reported that Peyvandha.ir (new filtering page) has jumped 144 scores up and now this website is ranked 1700 -amongst the most highly visited websites in Alexa. Peyvandha is a website in which users are faced with it if they demand for a filtered webpage.
The summary of Summer
Spring was supposed to be the season of "Killing the Persian Blogosphere" and summer can be regarded as the season of "elimination of news websites". In this season the filtering authorities tried to increase the barriers and limitations for news broadcasting, by filtering the newly emerged news websites in the shortest possible period of times.
On the other hand the unbelievable growth of Peyvandha Website's visitors which placed it as 1700th mostly visited in Alexa's statistics is a sign which shows the expansion of filtering range dramatically. Statistics also shows that the number of visits from this website has been 30 thousand times per month which means on a daily basis 1 thousand visitors are directing to it which is a considerable amount.
Though, these statistics are estimations and thus not fully reliable, however regarding the lack of statistic and news in the filtering field in Iran the fact that filtering has increased drastically from the early spring (2010) till the late summer (2010) is understandable.
Finally, it is good to mention that the filtering errors decreased during the summer which is a clear sign that shows an improvement in expansion and efficiency of filtering procedure in Iran. The process in which according to news published by news agencies, is altering from a filtering stage to creation of a national Internet (Intranet).
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