Mass Arrests of Journalists Follow Iran Elections

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the fact that no less than 23 journalists have been arrested in Iran in the week following the elections, making Iran one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Online activists are trying to counter this trend by giving advice for helping Iranian protesters. One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that the reformers are puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."

Comments

But should we believe that.... ?

[ls671]

> "One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that they're puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."

I agree with this idea but should we think that foreign intelligence agents in Iran are currently seriously told to stay put and do nothing ? ;-))

Or even believe that there is no foreign intelligence agents in Iran ?

There definitely seems to be a momentum from the people of Iran taking place although, pendulum effect at work again ?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1273015&cid=28384711&art_pos=8

Foreign Influence in Iran Protests is Real

[Anonymous Coward]

"One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that they're puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."

Regardless of what one thinks about the Ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad, it is well known that the CIA and other western powers are spending millions stirring up trouble in Iran: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1543798/US-funds-terror-groups-to-sow-chaos-in-Iran.html

This article gives some historical overview of western meddling in Iran: http://www.voltairenet.org/article160670.html

What many of you also fail to understand is that while Musavi is less fundamentalist than Ahmadinejad, his views are hardly one of support for "human rights" and free society. It is sorta like the difference between Republicans and Democrats - a few differences on paper but little substantial difference.

Re:Surprised

[MyLongNickName]

This does not confirm that the elections were a farce. It simply confirms that Iran is not a liberal democracy. If the elections were fair and a protest erupted, there would have been a similar clampdown.

Frankly, I don't know who to believe. The past 30 years of American history has taught me not to take my government's word at face value, and journalism isn't much better. I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.

What does it take to topple regime?

[javacowboy]

I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious about what the historical precedent is for regimes to be overthrown since it doesn't seem to happen.

My Russian friend used the colloquialism "every country is three meals away from a revolution" to describe the threshold for revolution, to make the case that nobody missed three meals during the Great Depression but did before the Russian Revolution.

I also read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in which Heinlein asserted that revolutions are never started or run by ordinary people, but by well organized political factions.

There's also 1984, in which Orwell points out that revolutions always involve the middle class, and the proletariat never drives revolutions.

There's also the wild card of alleged CIA involvement, which was behind the Orange (Ukraine) and Rose (Georgia) revolutions.

All of these tidbits of information aren't helping me to predict the outcome of the latest situation in Iran. What's driving the protests other than the election results? Will the revolutionaries succeed?

Re:What does it take to topple regime?

[jollyreaper]

My Russian friend used the colloquialism "every country is three meals away from a revolution" to describe the threshold for revolution, to make the case that nobody missed three meals during the Great Depression but did before the Russian Revolution.

I also read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in which Heinlein asserted that revolutions are never started or run by ordinary people, but by well organized political factions.

There's also 1984, in which Orwell points out that revolutions always involve the middle class, and the proletariat never drives revolutions.

There's also the wild card of alleged CIA involvement, which was behind the Orange (Ukraine) and Rose (Georgia) revolutions.

The thing to remember is that these are the observations of writers. They may be true or they may not, being printed is no more proof of one than the other.

If you look at the American Revolution, it was organized and financed by a faction within the elite and most privileged class of society. The colonies had not been around long enough to have as firm a tradition of aristocracy as in England so most of the American aristocrats were new to their wealth, having earned it themselves rather than inheriting rank and position from father and he from his father before him. So there was a great belief in America that the intelligent and hard-working could win their place in society, that a common man could prove his merit. Of course, there was also scorn of the common man who did not prove his virtue and remained common.

With the French Revolution, by all accounts it did start as a spontaneous uprising and leadership positions were hewn out violently in the same fashion one would expect if a few thousand people were thrown together and dumped into an isolated wilderness.

The other thing we've seen historically is that a conspiracy might form to kick down the door to the halls of power but they lose control of the beast they created and different people gain control of it.

History seems to be a record not so much of grand conspiracies cunningly executed but people of greed and avarice settings events in motion that can sometimes turn out quite contrary to their expectations. WWII in Europe never would have happened if Hitler had not worked so diligently to bring it about but the results ran somewhat contrary to his expectations.

Middle East Peace

[MonsterTrimble]

I see this happening in Iran and even though I think the human suffering during this build up to civil war (and I have no doubt civil war will erupt from this) is immense, I look at the middle east overall and I wonder if Iran having this happen to it wouldn't be the best thing for everyone. With Iran fighting within itself, it doesn't have the focus on Isreal, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq which has large issues with iran-funded militant groups. The money dries up, leaving the groups to fend for themselves, which they would find extremely difficult.

I personally hope that at the end of this there is a more 'west friendly' regime. It seems from all accounts that most of Iran's youth are wholeheartedly embracing technology and being part of the world stage. The middle east needs an country with an people-elected islamic leader which is willing to embrace the future.

that's nothing- try the political conventions here

[SuperBanana]

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the fact that no less than twenty-three journalists have been arrested in Iran in the week following the elections, making Iran one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist

23? That's it? At the RNC's and DNC's for the last decade, the cops have been putting people in holding cells by the bushels, charging them with all sorts of things like "disturbing the peace", or just simply letting them go after 24 hours.

i understand the historical reasons

[circletimessquare]

why iran hates great britain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game

i understand why iran hates the usa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ajax

but what the hell: it's not the colonial era and its not the cold war anymore

are the iranian people that deluded (or rather: the iranian government thinks so lowly of their own people) that anyone would actually believe this massive popular uprising is actually just manipulation by foreign powers?

propaganda only goes so far, then its just downright laughable paranoid schizophrenia

Re:i understand the historical reasons

[nedlohs]

CNN was great last night, some Iranian spokesperson having a press conference declaring that there is no freedom of speech or privacy in Western countries and declaring that hence it must be a conspiracy by western governments that iranian embassies have seen disrupted by protests and so on. And that such a thing is unacceptable.

Because Iran has never, say, assaulted a foreign embassy and taken those inside hostage or anything like that.

Certainly never restricted freedom of speech by locking up reporters, or invaded the privacy of people by snooping on their electronic communications.

you have it backwards

[circletimessquare]

no one in iran knows the truth, because there is no free press

everyone outside iran knows the truth, because there is free access to a free press

and what in your mind makes you think that the us govt can control the world media?

well, let's go with your paranoia, and make believe for the moment the us govt really can control the media. not even just american outlets, but even the likes of news.com.au and news.bbc.co.uk: any western media outlet. this is some extreme paranoia to believe that, but let's go with your bizarre pov for a moment

well then, what's preventing me from going to:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/

is your assertion the us govt can control these news sources?

but my whole point is right there in those links: the fact that i can even click on those news sources if i choose to, and no one is going to knock on my door for doing that, and no one is blocking my access to official russian or chinese news sources, and i feel no fear in clicking those links, then what the hell does that leave your assertion about who is controlling "the media" or your right to free access to news sources in the usa?

why the heck do you have the whole notion of a free press and its implications completely ass backwards in your mind?

dictatorships, cartels, democracy

[goffster]

I think a large number of people (Americans especially) automatically think a dictatorship is
a bad thing. A dictatorship is generally bad for Americans but perhaps good for other people.
There are benefits to a dictatorship. When you have a good dictator, things are generally pretty
good. The trick is to avoid the bad dictator.

As an analogy, think of a software company where the CEO was voted in by all the developers.
This software company is almost certain to never be competitive with a company that
is run by a tight-fisted, smart, savvy CEO.

So which company would you want to work for?
It would depend on your goals. Do you want to make money with Stock options? Do you simply
want to program any cool thing you wanted?

Re:Marg bar Diktator!

[Anonymous Coward]

Their attempts at jamming and filtering have clearly been quite porous.

The porosity may be purposeful. You'll note an article posted earlier about Siemens and Nokia providing censoring technology to Iran's government.

FTA:

the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection

If they totally shut down the internet communications then there is nothing to run DPI on. By reducing their traffic but not eliminating it they have stuff to inspect.

For more information about the Iranian firewall check out the links in the summary from Researchers Find Gaps In Iranian Filtering posted here yesterday on Slashdot. There are a couple of charts of web, email and video traffic leading up to and after the elections as well as a graph showing percentage of top 10 applications blocked.

Re:Surprised

[SkyDude]

I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.

Iranians living in the US know the truth. Seek out what they have to say on Google.

By the way, you may think the US government is FOS, but take note of the language used on many of the protester's signs. They're in English, and I don't think they are necessarily looking for attention from the Brits.

Having worked with a former Iranian several years ago, I can tell you only what he told me - there can be terrible consequences if someone speaks out against the ruling mullahs. I, for one, would like to see this upheaval undermine the bastards that are ruling that otherwise magnificent country, populated by smart hard working people.

Re:Surprised

[castironpigeon]

A lot of blood is going to be shed in the next few days. And the press just happens to be considered a fair target by the Iranian government. :-(

Making the press a target is actually going to backfire on the Iranian government. Instead of the usual 15 minutes devoted to practically any international event before the next bit of sensationalist bullshit comes on the air, this attack on their own may embitter the press enough to cause them to give Iran a bit of hell for its trouble. Imprisoning or killing a few dozen reporters could mean the difference between a revolution that nobody ever hears or cares about and one that has most of the world supporting it and therefore succeeds.

Re:You got to hand it to them

[Attila Dimedici]

The deadline set up by the Constitution as to when the Electoral College meets.
If the Supreme Court had not intervened there are several possible outcomes:
1. Florida Legislature appoints an Electoral College delegation (Constitutionally permissible). Result: Florida's electoral votes go to George W. Bush. George W. Bush is President
2. Florida does not send any delegates to the Electoral College. Result: Neither Candidate has the necessary electoral votes, the outcome is decided by the U.S House of Representatives. George W. Bush is President (the House of Representatives was majority Republican at the time).
There may be one or two other possible outcomes, but they all result in George W. Bush being inaugurated on Jan 20, 2001.

Re:Surprised

[Hatta]

This does not confirm that the elections were a farce. It simply confirms that Iran is not a liberal democracy. If the elections were fair and a protest erupted, there would have been a similar clampdown.

At least they had protests. We had two extremely suspect elections in a row, and US citizens did nothing. It's pretty pathetic to think that Iranians expect more democratic results from their elections than we do.

Re:Standing up

[Bryansix]

These people MASSACRED the persians, and took their land, and killed or enslaved anyone living on it. The same is true of just about any muslim state, with the notable exception of Indonesia (though neighboring malaysia is certainly not an exception).

Honestly, read history. There isn't a single country around the globe, with the exception of Indonesia, where muslims are the natives. Not a single one.

Just so you know : the natives of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia are the berbers. The natives of Egypt are, well, Egyptians, massacred by the muslims in the first wars, and now all but replaced. The peoples of the gulf were always a mix of different nationalities, living in tribes, massacred by a single tribe during the start of islam. The inhabitants of Jordan, Syria, Iraq ... were Greeks, Romans, Persians and Hindus (western peoples) before the muslims slaugthered them. The inhabitants of Iran were the Persians, these were slowly killed over a few hundred years by muslim "immigrants". Pakistan and Bangladesh were inhabited by Hindus before the massive slaughter of the islamic mongol empires started. All were exterminated, either by direct genocides, like the islamic prophet did, or by slow attacks during "peaceful immigration" like happened in Iran.

The muslims, or the arabs, whatever you call them started out as a small tribe stealing from caravans between Damascus, Medina and Mecca. Christian and Jewish cities all. In Mecca there was a strong "pagan" presence, a polytheist religion centered around the moon god "allah" (only one mark in his name in Arameic) (the symbol for islam is still the moon phase). He had 3 beautiful daughters, of which all but a few statues are destroyed. In the initial war to start islam, over 12000 people were killed. A number that would rise to 100 million before 100 years would pass.

QFT!

Re:Surprised

[rs79]

"I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.

Hell, I doubt many people inside Iran know the truth. "

What he said. Twitter is ablaze with the revolution and attempts to sort fact from fiction. One of the accepted "facts" is that embassies are taking in the wounded.

A buddy of mine is the guy that conncted Iran to the net in the 90s. He's over there still and says this is a complete myth.

There is *so* much misinformation now it almost lends credence to the notion the CIA is doing it again.

See also:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-in-tehran-fantasy-and-reality-make-uneasy-bedfellows-1710762.html