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Iranian App Helps Users Avoid Morality Police (reuters.com)

Posted by timothy on from the when-software-is-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Young people in Iran are using a new app called Gershad (a contraction of 'Gashte Ershad', or 'guidance patrol'), to avoid the 'morality police' by sharing the location of checkpoints with other users. At checkpoints strict Islamic dress and behavior codes are enforced, and their ad hoc nature can make them difficult to avoid. Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said of Gershad, "This is an innovative idea and I believe it will lead to many other creative apps which will address the gap between society and government in Iran."

32 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. That's nice, but... by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What Iran really needs is a revolution to overthrow those theocratic motherfuckers.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    1. Re:That's nice, but... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A revolution? Fuck, a revolution is what got them into that shit, you really think you can motivate them to try again?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:That's nice, but... by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It might be a while. The Obama administration left the last big attempt at reform to twist in the wind.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:That's nice, but... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uh...it was a revolution that got them in this mess in the first place. Jimmy Carter was completely fooled by the Ayatollah Khomeni, and thought he was a decent fellow who wanted a grassroots revolution. 35 years ago, under the Shah and his Savak secret police, Iranian - no, scratch that, Persian women walked freely in the streets dressed however they liked. After the revolution? Let's just say that when they renamed the country the Islamic Republic of Iran (its official name still today), they weren't screwing around. Carter had the nerve to lecture the Ayatollahs on Islamic law, telling them how Allah does not justify cruelty to women. As if HE had memorized the Koran.

      And you know the real losers of the Iranian revolution? The liberals. After accepting their help to overthrow the Shah, the Ayatollahs - in a completely unanticipated and surprising move that nobody, and I mean nobody saw coming except everyone in the world - liquidated the liberals in the same way they liquidated the hated Savak. Useful idiots, as always.

      What happened afterwards? Everything everyone said was going to happen. Soviets invade Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq go to war, Pasdaran copy Communist technique of clearing minefields with human wave attacks, and Morality Police hit the streets telling women to cover up. And it was all America's fault.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:That's nice, but... by unixisc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A counter-revolution, to be more precise. Preferably, one that outlaws Islam - in the same way Communism was outlawed in Russia after 1991.

    5. Re:That's nice, but... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do you know ANYTHING about Iran? WTF? The Islamic government is genuinely popular. They TRIED to have a revolution a few years ago and it went nowhere. It failed even though Western leftists changed their Twitter pages backgrounds to green in support. I know, I'm as clueless as you - how could such a move have failed?

      You want to know something really chilling? Ahmedinajad won in the 2005 election because he pulled a Bernie Sanders - he promised to give free (oil) money to ordinary folks. The man is legitimately popular and he has Morality Police on the streets, with the full support of the people who voted for him. It can happen here, people.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:That's nice, but... by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If we've learned anything from the Arab Spring it's that most of the people living there favor these types of religiously oppressive governments, so any overthrow of the existing power structure is more likely than not to end up with something worse taking its place. If Iran were destabilized right now, they'd end up being partially controlled by ISIS. As bad as Hussein or Assad might be, at least they kept a lid on that shit.

      I think a good chunk of the Middle East might be sliding towards some hopeless cycle for the foreseeable future because anyone intelligent enough to see why that kind of system is bad is likely to leave for other, less oppressive countries. The people who could be a catalyst for reform aren't there any longer to make improvements and it's no surprise that they don't want to stick around when it's relatively easy to move elsewhere and end up in a country where you won't be killed for your religious beliefs or stoned to death for your sexual preferences.

    7. Re:That's nice, but... by nomadic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      " The man is legitimately popular and he has Morality Police on the streets, with the full support of the people who voted for him. It can happen here, people."

      First, he doesn't have anyone on the streets, because he is no longer president of Iran. Secondly, he was widely unpopular, particularly with the increasingly powerful educated urban population, who got Rouhani elected.

    8. Re:That's nice, but... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      Yeah...he was a one-termer who did a ton of damage to his own country with untenable promises. Sound familiar yet?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    9. Re:That's nice, but... by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      A counter-revolution, to be more precise. Preferably, one that outlaws Islam - in the same way Communism was outlawed in Russia after 1991.

      99.4% of Iranians are Muslims. Good luck with that.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    10. Re:That's nice, but... by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2

      They had one against the amazingly corrupt Shah of Iran in 1979. This is the result.

      Revolutions don't always bring benefits to the local people or to the world, as a whole, except in the very short term.

    11. Re:That's nice, but... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      They are not all the same sort of Islam. The country runs the whole spectrum from 'very devout muslim' to 'insanely devout muslim.'

    12. Re:That's nice, but... by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I somehow have the feeling that it's more like with the US political spectrum running from "very devout" to "insanely devout" Christian in any and all political offices.

      Have you ever seen a US politician not end his speech with some phrase invoking god?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:That's nice, but... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Informative

      the same way Communism was outlawed in Russia after 1991.

      That would be not at all, of course. The communist party of Russia holds 92 seats in the Duma, and runs their candidate against Putin in the presidential elections as well.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    14. Re:That's nice, but... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      The USA has 99% literacy, Iran has 80%. That's a notably larger block of people who are especially easy to manipulate. And you certainly don't need a majority for control -- the majority in Iran voted for reformists until they found it didn't do any good. 20% is more than enough to fill the revolutionary guard ranks.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    15. Re:That's nice, but... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      If we've learned anything from the Arab Spring it's that most of the people living there favor these types of religiously oppressive governments

      Libyans voted heavily for secular parties, it's not the people's fault that the islamist government refused to leave office and forced the legitimate government into exile in the east. Tunisia on the other hand has successfully transfered power from islamists to secularists via democratic election.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    16. Re:That's nice, but... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      This is what we Germans call "dangerous superficial knowledge".
      Communism was not outlawed in Russia after 1991, only the CPSU was. CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) never was outlawed and is, in fact, the second largest party in Russia.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    17. Re:That's nice, but... by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > The problem for the Iranians wasn't the revolution, but the hijacking of the revolution by the Islamists.

      Revolutions are almost always hijacked, usually by the most fanatical of the revolutionaries. It's _amazing_ that US politics were so thoughtful and cautious in the first 30 years after the American Revolution.

    18. Re:That's nice, but... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The literacy rate is 97% among 15-24 year olds, both male and female. Iran is changing.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    19. Re:That's nice, but... by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

      That's a good point... the weakness of the federal government at the time may have helped. There wasn't a power structure larger than an individual state to seize.

    20. Re:That's nice, but... by KGIII · · Score: 2

      They have about as much chance of working together as the socialist Bernie Sanders does with the white working class.

      Umm... What?

      No, seriously. What? Do you actually know who Sander's supporters are? Have you looked to see where Sander's funding is coming from? You might want to do that some time. 'Cause, well... Err... Let me see...

      Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. Seriously, sit down.

      The white, working class, people are actually the people who are supporting Bernie's candidacy. I know that may seem odd but it's not the welfare class that's supporting him because they don't have any money. No, it's individuals and unions of individuals that are supporting him. Most of them, by all appearances, are very much white and working class.

      The very wealthy, perhaps still working, don't seem to be the group with the most supporters. The welfare class seems to favor the Republicans (often Trump, Cruz, or Bush) or they favor Clinton. Even if they did support him, they're not sending him much money. It's not, on average, business owners who are supporting him. It's pretty much white working class folks who are supporting him, speaking about him, volunteering for him, and things like that.

      I... I... I don't know how you would think that the two wouldn't be working together? I read your post. I read your post three times. I'm baffled that you'd say such a thing and then tell someone else to stop talking about something, calling them ignorant, and then suggesting that they need to learn something. Who the fuck did you think was supporting Bernie? No, really... Who do you think his supporters are? Have you ever seen his constituents? They're pasty white, working-class, people from Vermont!

      Yet, you sit there and claim another is ignorant and needs an education. The mind, it boggles. I encourage you to look at the demographics of his constituency and to look at the people who are supporting him. I have no idea why you'd think he'd not be able to work with them when they're (very specifically) the ones supporting him.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    21. Re:That's nice, but... by Copid · · Score: 2

      This is something really important that a lot of people who live in healthy democracies miss. A lot of them seem to assume that freedom and democracy are the natural state of things and that when governments topple, democracy is likely to spring up like magic. This attitude is not helpful when it comes to our inclination to topple any government we don't like and assume that what replaces it will be better.

      The reality is that at the end of a revolution, there's usually at least one faction with a lot of guns. Democracy requires that the guy with all of the guns say, "You know what? I'll just let you guys run this place instead of becoming a dictator myself." Guys who amass and lead private armies tend not to be the types of guys who do that.

      It's rare that people are smart enough to say that nobody gets to be dictator. Most people just seem to want to argue over whether it's their turn to hold the whip. The lesson people get from, "The other guys abused us when they were in charge," is almost always, "Now that we're in charge, we're going to get those fuckers," instead of, "Maybe nobody should be doing this."

      --
      An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
  2. Morality Police - coming soon to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With our wonderful influx of immigrants who don't wish to assimilate with our western culture, you can expect this here soon... just as Sharia law has already wormed it's way in Seattle and other liberal havens. And you can thank LIBERALS for this when it happens. The irony.

    1. Re:Morality Police - coming soon to the USA... by _merlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You've already got your own morality police: the feminists, SJWs, etc. turning campuses into "safe spaces" and branding words and behaviours "problematic".

  3. Meanwhile, back in reality by Snotnose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The head nutjobs are saying "This is an innovative idea and I believe it will lead to not only arrests for having the app on your phone, but by poisoning the data we can catch even more infidels".

  4. the last we'll ever hear about them by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    and their 'honeypot'

  5. Re:Bernie Sanders 2016 by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, because this place will be so much better with Slashdot, Google, Facebook, Comcast, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, etc, running the government...

    Fascism is for the historically ignorant.

    TFTFY.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  6. A better use of this... by He+Who+Has+No+Name · · Score: 2

    ...would be setting up rapid ambushes on those checkpoints.

    The Morality Police will give up quick on their bullshit if they start getting shot with no witnesses every time they set up a checkpoint.

    Marg bar dictator - marg bar Khomenei.

  7. What's the big deal? by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're simply enforcing Iran's version of political correctness. As stalwart adherents of PC here in the west, we should welcome such diversity in the behavioral expectations forced on people for the sake of the insecure and easily offended.

  8. Re:Less Obama by toonces33 · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is funny that you say that the Shah was the legitimate head of state, when in fact he was placed in power by a CIA-inspired coup which deposed Mosaddeq.

  9. Re:Less Obama by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Well, 2% of nothing is still not much. I probably spent 2% of Greece's GDP on toast last year...

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  10. Re:Less Obama by dunkelfalke · · Score: 3, Informative

    You have your history confused even more, which is not surprising, due to your your political views and general stupidity. The shah was installed by the Brits in first place by invading Iran and forcing the previous shah to abdicate. Oh by the way, that previous shah was also installed by the Brits 20 years before.
    And Mosaddegh was democratically elected.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap