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Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech
An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nokia and Siemens selling the censoring technology to Iran's government. Do you believe that the public relations damage to these companies can persuade them from selling this kind of technology to other dictatorial regimes?" I don't believe there will *be* any PR Damage, and that makes me a little sad.
Why single out Iran? Are you saying Nokia shouldn't operate in Iran; they should break the law there; what?
I'm guessing a lot of people reading this have the former in mind: information technology companies in the industrialized world shouldn't operate in countries that place restrictions on political speech to the extent seen in the countries on which the United States already has sanctions. In the 1980s, near the end of South Africa's counterpart to the U.S. "Jim Crow" era, there was an effort to boycott companies that did business in South Africa: disinvestment was a result.
To call it one or the other would be incorrect. It has parts that are Theocratic (Supreme Leader and group of clerics overseeing everything) and Democratic (elected President, etc).
Iran, regardless of all the shortcomings and issues IS a democracy
Who are you kidding? One un-elected guy has godly powers. He can do anything he likes.
Every "election" that happens, candidates are screened for loyalty to that unelected guy and Islam, if found not loyal enough, they are barred. And democracy is not just about elections. What is democracy without freedom of speech? freedom to peacefully protest? etc.
I'm baffled by your idea of what constitutes a democracy. "It sucks less than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so it's a democracy!"
Iran used to be a quasi-democracy, after the recent "election" (read coup) Khamenei gave a big fuck you to people and said we're not even going to bother counting votes anymore.
Yeah, those pesky bastards in Germany doing business with unfriendly nations, while the glorious Ronald 'Iran-Contra' Reagan did not at all organise weapons shipments to Iran. Not all all. No sir...
> Iraq was technically a democracy as well. It's just that Saddam happened to get 100% of the vote every time.
Iran democracy is way better than Iraq(old) one. For e.g even now the candidates who are dead against president Nejad were allowed to contest. And as I said in previous post, other countries like Saudi have NO election at all ! They have even worse filtering of internet. I am typing this from Saudi where even some of google pages are blocked(like language tools). What is the point in selling everything to these countries and bitching against selling something to Iran ?
> "Democracy" isn't the first word to come to my head when describing Iran... the recent events have done nothing to suggest otherwise.
Thats because western media are showing a very biased story of the Iran issues. Were the western reporters and observers able to see any solid evidence of rigging the election ? I doubt. The reason Nejad won the election with such a huge margin is because of his popularity among rural mass. The so called "reformist's" influence is confined to Tehran and surrounding areas only.
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
well technically Iran is a democracy
with democratic elections
and president elected by people.
obviously there are problems
and problems with ballot counting,
however Florida also had ballots accounting problem...
I do not say Iran is a happy place to live
but it is more open than many think.
do you think manifestations would happen in North Corea ?
do you think people would be able to play WoW or use Twitter in many Burma ?
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Same time Queen Elizabeth II is. At least the office of head of state in Iran is up for election, however rigged and preposterous that could be. Also, the "Assembly of Experts", which has elected him, can dismiss him.
Khamenei ran against Mohammad Reza Golpaygani, winning by two-thirds of the votes.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
So is there any evidence of election rigging yet?
"In 50 Iranian cities the number of votes cast in this month presidential election exceeded the number of eligible voters, the state's election watchdog admitted today. "
Take that as you will.
Correct, according to this article from the BBC:
"Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality."