It is day 9 of the Iran protests.
Today, Iran State TV was forced to cut off the live broadcast of a football match in Tabriz, Western Iran, as spectators were chanting slogans against State security forces and the Supreme leader, “Khamenei, shame on you, leave our country alone.”
As what started in Mashad, Iran’s second, most populous city has spread throughout provinces across Iran. Iranians, from working class, middle and elite are fed up with the Iranian regime’s treatment of its own people. Out of 80 million Iranians, 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, as the government choose to fund terrorism in its proxy territories rather than feed their own people.
Iranians ran to the streets and protested the current regime calling out “not to Syria, not to Lebanon, my life is for Iran.” As well as, “death to President Hassan Rouhani” and “death to the dictator”.
The Iranian authorities have used harsh retaliations against the protests. Twenty-two people have died for this cause, and more than 1,000 people have been arrested.
The most powerful tool the Iranian people can use to have their voices heard is the internet. Unlike the Green Revolution in 2009, where only one million Iranians had smart phones, currently forty-eight million Iranians have smart phones and access to voice their opinions on social media. In 2009, the world stood by passively and the hopes of the Iranian people were crushed. Now is their second chance to gain their freedom back.
The Iranian authorities knew that an integral tool the people of Iran need in order to succeed in their protests is the internet and therefore sporadically blocked the Iranian people’s access. Social media tools like Instagram, twitter and Telegram, a messaging tool that is widely used in Iran were blocked since December 31 in an effort to squash the protest and manipulate the views of the protest to the rest of the world.
Despite the crackdown on social media, many Iranians have still found loopholes and ways to broadcast their views. Some ex members of the Iran para military Bassij have begun to post pictures of burning their enrollment certificates and are calling on other Basijis to quite supporting the regime and join Iran’s people before it is too late.
Placing censorship and restricting access to the internet from Iran’s citizens has been their main tactic in an effort to silence the protests and seize the voices of their citizens from being heard.The only picture that is constantly appearing in articles regarding the anti-regime protest is of a young Iranian woman raising her fist amidst a cloud of tear gas at the University of Tehran during a protest in Iran. The Iranian authorities have censored the internet and are only allowing images of pro-regime protests to circulate on the media. The protesters are seen holding up pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, the supporters of this cause are none other than the clerics.
Social media is an integral piece to organizing and demonstrating against the government. In order for the efforts of the Iranian people to pay off this time, they need to have access to the internet and other social media tools.
The US should clear a way for tech companies to help Iranians come out of cyber isolation. We must use our freedom of expression that has been restricted from the Iranian people in an effort to have their voices be heard by the world.
As Ambassador Nikki Haley who held an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council today calling on the world to stop Iran’s human rights abuses stated, “Nowhere is the urgency of peace, security, and freedom more tested than in Iran.”
The Iranian government needs to put their people first. I call on the Iranian authorities to stop censoring the voice of the people and restore their access to the internet because ultimitley the Iranian people will determine their own destiny.
The people of Iran are not alone; the world is watching.
It is my greatest hope for the human rights of the Iranian people to be restored and protected and to one day see a free Iran.