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Iran Blocks, Unblocks Access to Google
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Sep 17, 2007 08:31 AM
from the can-jeeves-rise-to-the-challange dept.
from the can-jeeves-rise-to-the-challange dept.
morpheus83 writes "Iran has blocked access to the Google search engine and its Gmail email service as part of a clampdown on material deemed to be offensive. Hamid Shahriari, the secretary of Iran's National Council of Information did not explain why the sites were being blocked. Google, Gmail and several other foreign sites appeared to be inaccessible to Iranian users from Monday morning. Iran has tough censorship on cultural products and internet access, banning thousands of websites and blogs containing sexual and politically critical material as well as women's rights and social networking sites." That didn't take long. Iran has now
unblocked Google claiming the censorship was an error.
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[+]
In Iran, Blogging May Be Punishable By Death 495 comments
An anonymous reader writes "In Iran, crimes such as apostasy (leaving a religion, in this case Islam) and armed robbery are already punishable by death, but a new bill in Iran aims to add to the list 'establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,' effectively giving the government a free hand in silencing bloggers. The internet is widely used in Iran, despite its previous attempts at censorship. Will this change as the censorship grows more rampant?"
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Censorship is the last resort of a failing regime (Score:5, Insightful)
How stupid are these governments - really. Do they honestly believe that the problems of their country can be solved by stopping someone having a GMail account, or preventing them looking up camel porn on google?
Iran is in a desperate attempt to return to old school biblical times (great if you are not a woman - "Iran has tough censorship on internet access
Re:Censorship is the last resort of a failing regi (Score:3)
I heard on NPR last week, from an Iranian who had returned from visiting family, that there is a large contingent of the population that is pro-American and is looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government? I know, I know... the bad guys have the guns. However, if they can get the guns (and more importantly, ship them to Iraq), surely those Iranians who want regime change can take matters into their ow
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But, ya know, it doesn't ever seem to work out so well. I think it has some to do with the way the government handles it, and some to do with how the people inside handle it.
We did it in Afghanistan, and it made a massive mess. We did it in Cuba, didn't work (I blame THAT 100% on the US government, but I doubt it would have worked anyway).
Did it to a lesser extent in Poland in WWII, everyone ended up pretty much dead.
It could work, but man, that'd be risky (what i
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the greatest irony (Score:3, Insightful)
this should teach something the current crop of violently militant religious fundamentalists who wish to li
Re:Censorship is the last resort of a failing regi (Score:4, Insightful)
"I heard on Al Jazeera last week, from an American protesting in Washington, that there are a large contingent of the population is is pro-peace, and who are looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?"
I'm looking at this from an outsiders perspective, but it seems to me that in both countries (United States and Iran), there are a reasonable, sane majority of people just trying to get on with their lives, who are being pushed into war by a vocal, fundamentalist minority.
Rational people on both side look out, and see only the extremists. Joe Washington doesn't want war but everything he hears regarding Iran is negative - they want to wipe out Israel, they want to build nukes. Joe Tehran has a generally pacifist outlook too, but when he reads about America, it is usually because of attrocities like Abu Ghraib, or some other massacre. Time passes, and the crazies on both sides get louder and louder, while the rational people - constantly exposed to this propaganda, start to feel that even though they want peace, the "other side" is giving them no choice but to go to war.
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a MILLION dead Iranians (Score:5, Informative)
I heard on NPR last week, from an Iranian who had returned from visiting family, that there is a large contingent of the population that is pro-American and is looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?
In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000.
[...]
With more than 100,000 Iranian victims[73] of Iraq's chemical weapons during the eight-year war, Iran is the world's second-most afflicted country by weapons of mass destruction-- second only to Japan. The total Iranian casualties of the war were estimated to be anywhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000. Almost all relevant international agencies have confirmed that Saddam engaged in chemical warfare to blunt Iranian human wave attacks; these agencies unanimously confirmed that Iran never used chemical weapons during the war
Donald Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein on 19 December - 20 December 1983. Rumsfeld visited again on 24 March 1984; the same day the UN released a report that Iraq had used mustard gas and tabun nerve agent against Iranian troops.
Parent
Re:Censorship is the last resort of a failing regi (Score:5, Interesting)
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Armed Citizens In the Modern World (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, that works. So, we'll see some guy with his grocery bags standing in front of a Russian or Chinese supplied tank, stopping the entire Iranian Army from running down protesters that "grew some balls".
Have we seen this before?
In an age where the government has much more firepower than the armed citizenry, its difficult for citizens to rise up like they did in 1776.
Back then, with the exception of a Navy, the people in the American Colonies were a lot more closely matched with the British. What they lacked, they were able to get through guerilla action. Hell, back then, even privately owned vessels were armed.
Modern tyrannies are better armed than the citizenry, even where the citizens are permitted to own firearms. Back then, a handfull of armed farmers could take over an artillary battary, and use it. Now, farmers might be able to knock a plane out of the sky. Or disable a tank, but, the average farmer, tribesman, stockbroker, pimp, is going to be hard pressed to come out on top when a division of tanks comes at him while jets providing support for the ground troops create a no-mans land where neighborhoods stood.
Yeah, your idea worked for the students in China.
Parent
Re:Armed Citizens In the Modern World (Score:4, Insightful)
supplied tank, stopping the entire Iranian Army from running down protesters that "grew some balls".
The Iranians are quite capable of overthrowing a government. They did so relatively recently (1979ish) when they overthrew the CIA-coup-installed US-backed douche Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (aka the "Shah").
Sadly the revolutionary forces had too many religious wackos and too few young liberal students and the poor bastards got stuck with a theocracy/democracy/republic. Kinda like the USA but with a different(worse; ya, i said it**) religion.
There is of course very little chance of another revolution soon because no sane person would overthrow their own government while it is under imminent threat of invasion/pre-emptive nuclear attack.
In fact, there is nothing quite like an irrational, powerful and belligerent enemy to strengthen the position of a bad government.
** just to be clear, all religions suck-ass and have no business anywhere near a government.
Parent
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There's a key difference between the Iranian situation and the democratic revolutions in the former Soviet Bloc. In the latter case,
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It sounds like you have the mistaken notion that the US is some benevolent "peace keeper". However the vast majority of the time (every single US involvement except for serbia) was unwanted intervention to support either US ideology or US economy. standing up for themselves... I'm sure most nations would prefer if the US just went back to their pre WW
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But, not to worry, Google will provide the Iranian government a complete list of users and their searches.
So, President Ahmacompletewhackjob can sleep at night knowing his has fulfilled his duty to the mullahs.
Re:Censorship is the last resort of a failing regi (Score:2)
Koranical times
Unblocked (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unblocked (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Unblocked (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good for them (Score:4, Funny)
Just Curious (Score:2)
That's the least of the problems with Iran today (Score:5, Interesting)
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http://www.iranian.com/Milaninia/2005/August/MKO/ [iranian.com]
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"Iran should stop executing children"
Bad, but we try an increasing number of childern as adults, and states keep lowering the age at which children can be tried as adults.
"Iran hangs three in south-west"
We are in good company here, not only do we execute plenty of people, but don't we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world?
"Western countries on Thursday voiced concern at the rising number of executions in Iran"
Didn't Bush and Texas execute a horrific number in his term
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I realize you're stupid, but execute doesn't mean the same thing as incarcerate.
"but don't we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world?"
No. No, "we" don't.
I realize drawing moral equivalence between Iran and the US is what keeps you people going, but pretending what happens here is as horrific as what happens in Iran is unrealistic and intentionally inaccurate.
Why do you go so far out of your way to make the things that happen here look as bad as what
Re:That's the least of the problems with Iran toda (Score:2)
Why is this not a big problem for Iran again?
Why never the Saudis? (Score:2)
I find it quite interesting that while Iran gets lots of flak these days for their Sharia-based legislature and lack of democracy and liberty, Saudi Arabia, where conditions are actually quite similar, is almost never mentioned. I wonder why ...
P.S. Saudi Arabia actually rates lower than Iran by some standards: Example [bbc.co.uk].
You can't "slap a Jap" anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
In the obvious run up to the war with Iran, it seems like the media is all too happy to paint them with the bigot, sexist, and totalitarian brushes. We are doing this with China. We did
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Who would you pick on if you were part of a group of social misfit? The complete loners, ofcourse!
So why pick on a country with practically no human rights?
Re:You can't "slap a Jap" anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact A: The US has a history of stereotyping other cultures
Fact B: The US executive administration wants to go to war with Iran.
False Conclusion C: We are not allowed to paint Iran as bigoted, sexist or totalitarian.
The fact that the US has problems does not correlate to Iran being pure as the wind-driven snow. In fact with all of our problems, I'd much rather live here we have the opportunity to fix our problems.
Parent
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Why not take a look at all the other horribly run countries in the world? China is acting far worse towards it's people than Iran is.
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I was in America visiting family when the mass-media collectively decided they 'hated' the French, and between the outright bigotry of the right wing Radio, and the 'jokes' of the Television comedians very very few people actually addressed what the French government had said..
It's like a positive fee
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Re:You can't "slap a Jap" anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Oddly enough, I find it hard to be sympathetic toward a country that hosts a Holocaust Denial [go.com] seminar. Maybe I really am part of the problem.
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Re:You can't "slap a Jap" anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, due to the fact that the US is partly responsible for the current Iranian government (Operation Ajax blowout with the Shah) I would have to say us Americans are part of the problem. We replaced a socialism sympathizer with a dictator who brutally ruled his people and then we get all uppity when he gets replaced by a theocratic revolution. Then we back Saddam in hopes that he'll take care of the problem and it all goes to hell.
Things would have been find and we wouldn't be talking about Iran's nuclear program today had we not interfered with a legal election.
Speaking of which, in theory, 9/11 would have never happened because we wouldn't have been arming Saddam against the theocratic Iran which later lead to the invasion of Kuwait which lead to Osama getting all pissy about American bases in Saudi Arabia.
This is what we call "blowback". We've been over there for 50 years interfering, overthrowing people, supporting dictators, and selling weapons to everyone and you wonder why they hate us.
I don't approve of Holocaust denying and hope that Israel will be recognized as a sovereign nation by all, but to say we didn't make this bed in Iran and share some responsibility of it is just not learning history correctly.
Parent
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Women are not equal under Iran's constitution, adopted in 1979 after the revolution that overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavi. The constitution mandates that the legal code adhere to Sharia law, the Islamic moral code based on the Koran. Article IV of that constitution stat
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unless iran deserves to be tarred (Score:4, Insightful)
now judge the government of iran on the basis of those criticisms
in other words, on the basis of the principles on which you vocally criticize the west, you should be loudly criticizing tehran
"And if you buy into any of this at all, you're the problem with this country."
ok, there's a criticism of yours: the drumbeat up to war, the propagandizing of a populace towards conflict
dude!
ever since 1979, the government of iran has been on propaganda full alert about demonizing the decadent immoral great satan of the west. constant rhetoric, demonstrations, down with the great satan. all through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s
so on YOUR BASIS for criticizing the west: dmeonization of another people for a drumbeat up to war, on YOUR BASIS!: tehran comes out orders of magnitude worse than any criticism you could level at london, paris, washington dc, etc
using YOUR RATIONALE, you should be 10-100x angrier at tehran than any government in the west
so go to the front of the line sir, and hurl some of your venom at tehran, unless you want to forfeit your claim to intellectual honesty
Parent
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"Welcome to the desert of the real." -- Morpheus
That's so pathetic.
That's reality. Life and the world will never be perfect. The best you can do is be less imperfect than anyone else.
There's also the fact that much of what is being said about Iran (the government) is fairly accurate.
is the west superior to the rest of the world? (Score:3, Insightful)
but you apparently do
if the world is ever to achieve peace, then every government in the world must be judged according to the same standards... sooner, rather than later, for the sake of peace
and when you begin to do that, and ONLY when you begin to do that, do you begin to move towards world peace. but if you continue to think of the west as somehow (ridiculously) "superior" to other parts of the world, then in your own mind you perpetuate the cycle of violence, by positing an "us" versus
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Sorry, I don't buy it. The theocratic medievalists that are running that country are doing a FINE job of ridiculing themselves and making us all feel sorry for the poor shmucks who are being raised there right now amidst a mysoginistic culture and a frail, failing economy. Even what many here would consider to be a highly biased new source (say, Fox) don't have to work
2 things (Score:3, Interesting)
2. it is ethnocentric to only criticize the west. that the west is only party that can be held responsible. this is soft racism: those poor iranians, they can't be held to the same standa
Information needs to be free (Score:5, Insightful)
Iran, you might have a culture that demands things, but if you force them onto your population, you will create resentment, resentment becomes anger, and anger begets revolution. Remember the Shah? The current government is running along the same path, and will meet with the same end.
Blocking Google sounds non-trivial, no accident (Score:2)
If you have a regime set up for such censorship even, you'd imagine that there would be enough red-tape to make sure that such things don't accidentally happen. This is one of those things akin to the nuclear weapons being flown over the US that just don't logically seem to be things that within reason can occur by accident.
Moreso Google has so many IPs, portals, links into them from Google Search on
trying to care ... trying to care ... fail! (Score:2)
I just don't get why I'm supposed to care about the internal problems of every nation on Earth.
Did you know that in America [and Canada] that two responsible gay people can't live together without contempt, or marry in a willing church? Did you know we still permit affirmative action to take place. etc, etc, etc. How about we concern ourselves with our country, they concern themselves w
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"We"? "They"? I'm sure people in Iran read slashdot, in which case this article is relevant to their country. I'm sure plenty of people in Germany (or wherever) read Slashdot, in which case the North American stories, by your metric, are irrelevant. So, are you arguing that all stories which are specific to a certain country should be expunged from Slashdot?
They're Right! (Score:3, Interesting)
In a "recent" post [blogspot.com], I included a link to a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's not even posted to the blog - it's just a link.
Well, hot damn! I start getting hits from all over the world, especially Asia. And what are they for? You got it - they're lookin' for hunky body builder pictures! And the first one was a Google hit from Alborz in Khuzestan, Iran looking for pictures of weight lifters.
I actually have a (different) post on the blog that mentions a town in Iran by name (Masshad, Iran). How many Iranians stumbled on that post? Zero!
Looks like the Iranian government is right - their pervy little citizens just use Google to find hot pics of buff studs.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, how else are we going to find that picture of Vanessa Hudgens... um, for "research"!
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2. Iranian laws don't affect American rights,. People are going to focus on the laws that affect them directly.
Also, you can't use Slashdot as a good gauge. The Gaussian bulk of people here are narcissistic technogeeks who desperately and continually seek a reason to feel superior. You don't get that same self righteous buzz criticizing people in another hemisphere as you get calling your fellow citizens idiots b