Iran announced Thursday that they will be setting up a national Intranet and blocking sites like Google Plus, Yahoo, Google and Hotmail to establish a “clean internet”. Whether the goal is cleanliness or suppression is debatable, but this does mean that many of these American services will be replaces with government services like Iran Mail and Iran Search Engine.
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Recently, a jailed political activist based out of Iran recorded a 15 minute video and posted it on YouTube. This is despite the government’s attempt to silence his efforts. The man, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, is the head of the Democratic Front of Iran, and uses the video to criticize the Iranian government who are putting undue pressure on political activists in the country.
Social Media has become one of the worst nightmares for the Cuban regime, according to a new video making rounds across the internet. The 53 minute video is a presentation given by an Internet expert to Cuban Interior Ministry last June. From the video it is clear that Cuban authorities believe that United States is encouraging and organizing the voices of dissent through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Sarah Shourd, one of three hikers who was arrested by Iranian border guards in July 2009 while hiking through northern Iraq and charged with spying, was finally freed in September after 410 days in solitary confinement, and she wrote her first op-ed piece about her ordeal for CNN.com. Highlights:
Since my release, many people have wondered why I have not been more condemning of the country that kept me in solitary confinement for 410 days. They have wanted to know why I speak with such conviction about the need for an improved Iranian-U.S. relationship and highlight my love for the Middle East and respect for Muslim culture.
At a very personal level, I never would have been kept in jail for 14 months if Iran and the United States had a better relationship. My fiancé, Shane Bauer, and our close friend, Josh Fattal, would not still be in prison in Iran today on the baseless charge of espionage.
But there is more to my conviction than the merely personal. I don’t believe that the animosity between Iran and the United States is an insuperable obstacle; it’s the responsibility of all governments to engage diplomatically, regardless of their differences, and when they can’t or don’t, it is their people who suffer the most.
Just a little over a year after protests erupted in Tehran and across social media sites over the Iranian election of 2009, a documentary called ‘For Neda’ has been released that illustrates the incredible power of video and the social web as tools for human rights activism. The video uncovers the story of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman who became a symbol for the Iranian opposition when a video of her death spread on the web. Read more and watch the documentary after the jump.
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