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| A picture taken from inside a car shows an Iranian couple riding a motorcycle on Jomhouri (Republic) street in downtown Tehran on June 4, 2013. (AFP Photo/Behrouz Mehri) |
Tehran. The
United States is making it easier for information-hungry Iranians to get on the
Internet and use social media, but has also slapped new sanctions on the
economy that could make their lives more painful.
Ahead of a
June 14 presidential election, during a campaign in which authorities have
allegedly tightened Internet access, the US has lifted a ban on selling
communications gear and software to Iran.
Thursday’s
move came just two weeks before the polls, but a senior official insisted that
it was not related to the election.
“This is a
response to their efforts to deprive their citizens of their rights,” the
official said. “The timing is really driven by the continued crackdown within
Iran.”
Users and
experts claim the government has been tightening controls on the Internet to
forestall the sort of trouble that erupted after the last presidential election
in 2009.
Amid
widespread claims the re-election of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
fraudulent, a vigorous social networking campaign fueled massive street
demonstrations that were brutally crushed by the authorities.
US State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has said the move would allow Iranians to
skirt the government’s “attempts to silence its people” and exercise “the right
to freedom of expression.”
Trita
Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, cheered the lifting
of the 30-year-old ban as a move toward intelligent sanctions.
“We finally
put an end to one of the worst examples of sanctions that hurt ordinary
Iranians, undermine civil society and human rights, and empower the regime,”
Parsi said.
The
European Union, United States and United Nations have all imposed sanctions on
Iran over its refusal to suspend enriching uranium, which in a highly refined
form can be used as the fissile core for an atomic bomb.
Tehran
insists that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful ends.
The
council’s Jamal Abdi told AFP: “Iranians seeking to exercise their right to
freedom of expression were doing so with one hand tied behind their backs
because of sanctions.
“Thankfully
that knot has now been loosened.”
In
practice, the decision allows US companies to begin selling computers, tablets,
mobile phones, software, satellite receivers and other equipment for personal
use to Iranians.
It also
permits the provision of instant messaging, chat, email, social networking,
sharing of photos and movies, web browsing and blogging.
Light at
the end of the tunnel?
Ehsan is a
32-year-old laptop salesman at Paytakht, one of several tech centers in Tehran
where Apple products, Windows-based laptops and cracked software are available
in abundance.
“This
gesture, along with any other that would help us connect to the modern world,
is most welcome,” Ehsan said.
IPhone
seller Nima, 25, praised the lifting of the ban.
“I don’t
want to jump the gun and say it’ll be all over soon but, for the first time, I
am seeing some light at the end of this tunnel,” he said of the sanctions
regimes.
Previously,
web surfers had to use proxy servers or virtual private networks to appear as
if they were online in other countries whose access to American companies such
as Apple or Adobe was not restricted.
They also
had to try to circumvent tough filtering by the regime, which banned access to
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and millions of other sites after the 2009 election.
A senior US
official said “our hope is… this will help make some hardware and software,
including things like antivirus software or software that helps protect from
malware, more available to them and make them more able to protect themselves
against government hackers.”
While
welcoming “this smart move,” Delphine Hagland, US director of Reporters Without
Borders, said “we have to be careful that this… will not open the door for US
companies to sell filtering technology to the Iranian authorities.”
That was a
reference to the regime’s ability in the past to buy US technology that allowed
them to censor the Internet and spy on citizens’ online activities.
Tehran has
yet to react to the US move, but the ultra-conservative Mashregh News website
warned of the “threats” from smart phones.
“Smart
phones, as a mobile computer system, can play a very substantial role in social
riots,” it said, warning that they could lead to “events even more widespread”
than in 2009, given the high interest among young Iranians for the devices.
But the
upbeat mood could be soured in part by a new round of sanctions Washington
slapped on Tehran on Monday. The country’s vital oil industry and access to
global banking are already under painful sanctions.
The latest
measures, authorize sanctions on foreign banks that make transactions in the
Iranian currency, the already heavily depreciated rial.
That could
weaken the rial further, making imports more expensive, and also make it more
difficult to acquire imports.
They will
also penalize anyone involved in selling goods or services to Iran’s auto
industry, the country’s second-largest employer.
In the end,
tech-savvy 26-year-old Ramin said “sanctions have created problems for the
government but it will always be the people who pay the real price.”
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