Iran Blocks, Unblocks Access to Google 197
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.
Unblocked (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's the least of the problems with Iran toda (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.iranian.com/Milaninia/2005/August/MKO/ [iranian.com]
Re:Unblocked (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Censorship is the last resort of a failing regi (Score:2, Informative)
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 if Iran found out it was coming from us? What if THEY found it?)
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.
Re:is the west superior to the rest of the world? (Score:3, Informative)
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 very hard to report on stories that the Tehran government itself uses press releases to announce. Banning certain hair styles. Forbidding the use of the word "pizza," for being to western, etc. That's not a reflection of the people of Iran, it's a reflection of the backwards theocracy that has those people by the short hairs.
It's isn't demonizing some young Iranian to point out that his religious leaders and the army under control of those religious leaders are nuts. It isn't demonizing a young Iranian woman to point out that the authorities running her country seem really obsessed with what she wears. And it isn't just the US pointing out that those same damaged people are busy trying to build nukes, and have press conferences every week announcing the imminent demise of other countries. To say nothing of seeking out buddy-buddy relations with neo-Stalinists-in-training like Hugo Chavez, and pumping cash, weapons, and terrorist-soldiers into a civil conflict that they're invested in sustaining and inflaming next door in Iraq, all the more so as it is tamped down in places where they've tried the hardest to spark it up.