Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests (bbc.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: As seething discontent has boiled over in Iran leading to mass protests, protesters have taken to the streets and social media to register their discontent... The government has been closing schools and shutting down transportation.

Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran.

Comments

Leave them alone

[FeelGood314]

Iran was once a democracy until they elected the "wrong" leader and America and Britain fixed it by putting in the Shah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

As long as the rank and file soldiers and police don't feel that the internal turmoil in Iran won't be exploited by outside forces they likely will tolerate peaceful protests. There is a good chance the Iranian leadership won't order any kind of crack down for fear the police won't obey them. If the rest of the worlds leaders can resist opening their mouths there is a good chance Iran can be another success story like Tunisia.

Re:Leave them alone

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the rank and file soldiers and police don't feel that the internal turmoil in Iran won't be exploited by outside forces they likely will tolerate peaceful protests.

Which is really irrelevant because the IRGC will enforce with force any subversion that made lead away from the current Islamic Republic. Basically, imagine if the KKK had been institutionalized in the US during the 50s and 60s. That's not something that would be magically fixed with peaceful protests (or at least, not without a lot of them and a lot of carnage).

If the rest of the worlds leaders can resist opening their mouths there is a good chance Iran can be another success story like Tunisia.

Except in Tunisia's case, the regime was backed (in words, at least) by France and the United States. It's precisely because they dropped support that something happened. The other major reason Tunisia is different is that while Iran has enjoyed a certain level of prosperity and seen that decline economically, I don't believe it was/is near as drastic as what Tunisia experienced. It's things like mass unemployment that move the common man much more than the abuse of human rights.

That's why Tunisia's president was repeatedly and overwhelmingly reelected for decades until a strong economic collapsed due to the global housing market collapse. The slow decline because of oil? Not as much a thing and something Iran has consistently trying to push away from depending on precisely because as much as producers can effect the prices, so too could several hostile nations collude to tank the price.

It's unclear if this current protest will have any effect--"Iran’s leaders were confronted by unauthorized protests in major cities for the third straight day on Saturday, with crowds aiming their anger at the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and some demanding that he step down". So, the anger is more to have him replace the current president. But there's a risk that accepting the mob's angry and using someone else as a fall guy empowers their belief that protests evoke change, which may eventually lead to his own downfall.

Re:Leave them alone

[ilguido]

Leave them alone . . . . Iran was once a democracy until they elected the "wrong" leader and America and Britain fixed it by putting in the Shah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Unfortunately your history is a bit off. The Shah was in power before the Prime Minister's coup, and was in power after the British & American counter-coup. You may note this section of the Wikipedia article:

Execution of Operation Ajax The official pretext for the start of the coup was Mossadegh's decree to dissolve Parliament, giving himself and his cabinet complete power to rule, while effectively stripping the Shah of his powers.[10][11][12] It resulted in him being accused of giving himself "total and dictatorial powers."

The "pretext" has the "unfortunate" quality of being true and understated in Wikipedia. The Prime Minister overthrew the Iranian democratic government, and effectively the Shah who then fled the country. The Prime Minister took the power of ruling by decree, in other words a dictator. After a quick look it appears that the Wikipedia article fails to mention that there was a fraudulent election staged to justify all of this. The Time magazine article that I saw on it mentioned that Iran's Prime Minister received a higher percentage vote than either Hitler or Stalin received in their elections. I wonder what the Farsi word for chutzpah is? Anyway, the counter-coup restore the Shah to power, it wasn't what put him in power to begin with.

Almost true, that is completely false. From the same wikipedia article:

the Shah began to take an increasingly active role in politics. He quickly organized the Iran Constituent Assembly to amend the constitution to increase his powers. He established the Senate of Iran which had been a part of the Constitution of 1906 but had never been convened. The Shah had the right to appoint half the senators and he chose men sympathetic to his aims. Mossadegh thought this increase in the Shah's political power was not democratic; he believed that the Shah should "reign, but not rule" in a manner similar to Europe's constitutional monarchies. Led by Mossadegh, political parties and opponents of the Shah's policies banded together to form a coalition known as the National Front. Oil nationalization was a major policy goal for the party.
By 1951, the National Front had won majority seats for the popularly elected Majlis (Parliament of Iran).

Basically the Shah created an upper house of the Parliament that was completely loyal to him, then a lot of people in Iran got upset for this fact and finally they elected Mossadegh who opposed that novelty. That's also why he was thinking of dissolving the Parliament: the unelected Shah controlled the upper house through unlected members. That was not very democratic to the eyes of Mossadegh and many Iranians alike.
The real problem, though, was the oil nationalization part. That got the US and UK to act: you can butcher your people all you want (like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain do), but don't touch our precious! End of story.

Then again, the majority of the people in Iran, like in every Middle East country, is made up of islamist blockheads, so, even if the ayatollah gets deposed, the end result would not be better (and probably much worse). But that's not what matters to the U.S.

Re:It only takes one generation for freedom to die

[harperska]

North Korea won't fall until China lets it.

Re:You just know---!

[DaHat]

If that were true... wouldn't the MSM be pushing it a bit more? Instead we have CNN on what? Day 2 or 3 of talking about a white truck.

Re:You just know---!

[Anonymous Coward]

The AIPAC in USA is behind this.

Oh shut the fuck up. The idea that everything revolves around the US is stupidfuckingbullshit.

Rouhani (the moderate president) published how many tax rials go to unaccountable religious programs (e.g. directly into the pockets of the mullahs). This is the first time those budget carve-outs have been made public. Rouhani did it to provoke a reaction against the mullahs. It seems to be working. For now. He may have underestimated the strength of backlash and could be washed out on the same tide as them.

The sad thing is that if these protestors succeed, chances are the power vacuum will be filled be even worse assholes. That's what happened with most of the arab spring. And that's because tearing shit down is easy. Building up new institutions from the wreckage is really fucking hard and lots of powerful people would be happy to see Iran permanently hobbled. Not the least of which is Abu Ivanka al-Amreeki, incompetent as he is, incompetent malevolence second only to competent malevolence.

Also, we should remember Neda Agha-Soltan and pray that no one else suffers her fate.

Re:It only takes one generation for freedom to die

[Kjella]

North Korea won't fall until China lets it.

China won't let North Korea fall unless Kim Jong-un goes off the deep end and launches a first strike. Everything short of that only serves China, I mean when Trump and Kim roll in the mud China wins. When Trump goes on the world stage as a warmonger China wins. When he huffs and puffs but can't actually do anything China wins. And if by some extreme escalation US actually launches a first strike? Bye goes Seoul and the whole peninsula will be a disaster area that the US would have to fix. Probably enough resentment to turn the whole of Korea away from the US and towards China. Even when they're publicly trying to de-escalate I'm pretty sure the unofficial message to NK is to keep tauting the US.