For most Iranians, the Internet has become our most important window to the world.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Recently, visitors to the library at the University of Oxford, England, had one unusual problem for one week: the main entrance was blocked off with latches, and a danger sign was also in place. In addition, portrait pictures had been hung, as well as websites entitled "No access to this website!".
The Oxford Library visitors had to turn around and then take another entrance.
All of this happened after an initiative by two Iranian photographers, Arash Ashoori-Nia and Amir Javadi: They were given the exhibition "Portrait of Iranian Bloggers", which was organized by the Oxford Internet Institute of the 22. September. The two photographers wanted to show with their pictures the long way Iranian internet users have to take to access information online.
Filtering websites and personal web pages (blogs) on the internet is a form of censorship used to prevent access to information. It is certainly hard for you in Norway to imagine how difficult it is for Iranian internet users to reach the website they want to visit. Many of the websites with news and political statements are filtered. There is no access to websites containing content on human rights, women's rights and minority rights. Personal blogs that may contain the least about sexuality are filtered.
Journalists in Iran have to bow to the censorship laws, and even censor themselves, to prevent their newspapers from being closed and their colleagues unemployed. A journalist therefore knows that he or she must follow the written and unwritten censorship rules. These rules include, among other things, political statements that are different from the official policies of the government, and those that affect the tradition of society, such as writing about sexuality. "We are in a minefield," the reporters tend to say to one another, because it is almost impossible to know when breaking the rules set by the authorities. A few years ago, 18 newspapers were closed on the same day, and several newspapers are closed annually.
A small window to the light
Increased access to the internet over the past decade has given Iran a somewhat greater access to news and other information. The official media still follow its strict guidelines, but more and more academics, cultural people, community activists, journalists and young people see the Internet as a window into the free world.
In the early years, when the internet came to the homes of the Iranian people, there was a wave of information that was then freely available. Everyone could read the views of others uncensored. There were many from the younger generation who started writing about their experiences in their daily blogs. Girls and women in particular wrote about gender discrimination in society and the injustice they themselves experienced daily. The journalists could write the banned news and reports on their websites. Human rights activists opened websites where reports on, and documentation of, human rights violations were published.
Unofficial statistics show that Iran is in fourth place when it comes to personal websites on the internet. Here in Tehran, you keep hearing questions like, "What's your blog address?" Or statements like, "I've already written about it on my blog."
The access to the internet led to the creation of several international circles of friends and collaborations and online communities among Iranian activists. A few years ago I worked as an editor for a newspaper in Tehran. Together with my friends, who worked on women's rights issues, we launched in September 2002 Iran's first feminist website, "Women In Iran", which soon became very popular worldwide. Several of the writers on this site wrote from abroad, for example from the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and the United States.
This site was one of my best experiences as a journalist. Never before had I experienced free writing and publishing.
My experience
But this period of free internet access did not last long. For the same reasons that free flow of information is not tolerated in the country, the internet was also exposed to different censorship methods. The Iranian state ordered ISPs to either close the websites or filter them. Various online communities were controlled by the authorities. Our feminist website, womeniniran.com, started filtering after six months. Then we had to change domain names, before the site was finally closed in 2007.
The fact that we used feminist words and expressions made the web pages filtered. Several scientific and medical websites fell victim to filtering because they contained words and expressions about sexual organs!
Now, after several years of censorship and filtering on the internet, we have learned to use methods to go behind the censorship and access the websites we want to read. However, not everyone knows these methods, and moreover, the state is constantly trying to create new measures to prevent access to the websites that are blacklisted. Those who use anti-censorship methods still have to go much further to access information, just like visitors to the library at the University of Oxford.
Javadi, who exhibited his photographs in the Oxford exhibition entitled "Faces Behind the Filter", believes that life for Iranians on the internet follows the same laws and rules as in real life. To me, he says: “It can be compared to someone constantly stalking you and preventing you from doing 60-70 percent of what you want to do on a daily basis. For example, that you have a book you want to read, a movie you want to see, or even a friend you want to meet. Our exhibition means that the user really encounters an obstacle to accessing information. "
Face behind the filter
The other photo artist, Ashoori-Nia, has his own photo blog filtered in Iran. He has photographed several Iranian activists. This is how he explains his commitment: “I wanted the question of why these sites are filtered to be addressed. I came up with the idea of photographing the people behind the censored websites and arranging this exhibition. Such an exhibition could not be held in Iran, and therefore we thought of using a foreign university. It was Oxford. Visitors to this exhibition will understand that the free flow of information is not a matter of course anywhere in the world. "
The photo exhibition in Oxford is one of the methods that young Iranians now use in their fight against internet censorship. They have signature campaigns and create new methods to break the censorship. They have also sent their letter of protest to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in the UK.
They may not have succeeded in their fight against the widespread state censorship of the Internet in Iran, but they are sure that the world community will hear their voices.
Asieh Amini is a journalist, feminist and human rights activist living in Tehran. She writes exclusively for Ny Tid, blogs at varesh.blogfa.com and can be reached at amini.asieh@gmail.com
