Interview with BBC News Online on the censorship in Iran - Full draft

Aaron Scullion from the BBC Online News had asked me a few questions about the Net censorship issue for the story he was trying to write. The story went online titled Iranian bloggers rally against censorship and it received a lot of attention from the blogosphere.

Note that this was done one day before the press conference.

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1. What was the source of the story you gave us on Sunday (no actual names neccessary)

I received about 3 emails that week from my readers in the weblog and then I read it on a few other Iranian weblogs.

2. Have you any idea what the situation in Iran is now, in terms of web censorship? Has this posting, and subsequent conversation, had any effect.

It's very complicated because there is no single and centralized policy or blacklist in Iran.

On one hand there are a number of powerful service providers who have been allowed to operate almost totally by their own resources. So for example, they were using satellite connection for their down-link and awfully slow modem connections through the telecommunication company of Iran. Later, a few of them were allowed to use two-way satellite connections, because the government didn't afford to give them more download bad with.

But due to security and economic reasons, the government has been trying to improve the infrastructure so nobody actually needs a satellite dish. But still, those organizations such as IRIB (Iranian TV and Radio) who are directly controlled by the Supreme leader, not the government have not complied with the government's regulation to centralize the downlink and uplink connections.

At the same time, government has installed cheap filtering software to control the data. But since they haven't been able to convince all big ISPs to use government's uplink, some of the ISPs still don't use the TCI software and instead, because of the fear of being closed down, have installed and run their own filtering system, with their own blacklist which is more conservative than the actual blacklist.

The situation now is that the government is trying to help some big wholesaler ISPs to be built by private sector (or Internet connection provider or ICP) so they can only deal with a few big clients, and not thousands of small ISPs. But the final agreement with the nominated ICPs is not done yet which leads to a basically centralized two-way connection and filtering.

Since then the government benefits the confusion. They say they only filter the websites that a committee realizes are against the Islam and the interests of the country. They have also recently said that if anyone's website is actually out of the blacklist and blocked by mistake, TCI would resolve that. However, the blacklist has not published yet and ISPs who get the blacklist say it has the "Secret" stamp on it.

3. Were you surprised by the response to our story?

Yes, I had tried to do the same thing in my blog and since it was in Persian, I got a lot of comments about the new websites thet have been filtered. But I didn't expect that a quick call for comments in Summit's blog, in English, could be so much welcomed. People must have be very frustrated. This is their only way to reach the global community. All other ways of communication in Iran are either heavily censored and controlled, or as in satellites TV, are one-way connection. Internet is their only way to raise their voices.

4. Why do you think people used Daily Summit to speak out? Did they want to get a message to the delegates at WSIS?

Absolutely. They know this is a UN-related summit and the official blog of this Summit is important enough to grab the attention of other delegates and participants, including the media. They also know that the Iranian officials are very defensive against these kind of things and if there is enough public pressure, they'd definitely change their attitudes. Especially EU delegates could have a great role in this. They can add this subject to their list of topics they have during their talks with Iran. They once forced Iran to suspend the stoning law, and they can do it for the Net censorship as well as other things.

5. How do you think so many people found out about the story so quickly?

Weblogs. Despite all censorship, I still have around 5,000 visitors everyday, half of them from Iran. What I wrote and asked was linked to and copied in many other Persian blogs (there are over 100,000 of them now), so people were informed about it. Weblogs in Iran are a decentralized network of free information and that’s why the officials do not like them very much. Especially those popular ones that provide social and political commentary.

6. Could you tell us what response, you've had personally, from fellow bloggers - and especially people who disagree with you?

I'm in tough position these days. On one hand I am very active to be a part of the efforts to improve democracy and freedom of expression in Iran using the Internet, (for example I've trying to launch a collective symbolic nomination on the Net), on the other hand I have to report about these activates and try to make it into popular Western blogs and possibly media.

So many people in Iran think that whatever I do is self-promotion and therefore sometimes they do not co-operate and try to show the world how I exaggerate things in order to get some publicity for myself. Some of the comments in the Daily Summit displays that feeling.

Also, many people in Iran have got used to seeing their basic rights denied by the regime and they are kind of too hopeless to respond to any of these activities. But when they feel their voice could be heard, they raise it. Daily Summit blog was one example.

7. Anything else you think we'd be interested in?

My next plan is to step up pressure on the major ISPs so they publish the blacklist. (Thinking of flash-mobbing their offices in Tehran or Google bombing them. Not decided yet.) Once it's officially out there, we can focus on the TCI and the censoring committee, hopefully with the help of Western media, to get the word to EU foreign policy officials.