TEHRAN, Nov 27 (IPS) - Iranian officials have scorned the labelling of this country by a journalists' rights watchdog as one of the world's 13 Internet 'black holes' and said they will continue to protect what they claim are the morals of society.
In a report released earlier this month, the Paris-based Reporters Without Frontiers had named Iran, along with countries like China, Belarus, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, as 'enemies' of the Internet for restricting access to it and jailing cyber journalists and bloggers.
Reacting, the secretary to Iran's Informatics High Council said that this country defines its values differently from those in the West. "If freedom of speech is against cultural values, it must be prevented. All countries in the world use filtering because freedom (of speech) shouldn't turn into (freedom of) prostitution," he was quoted as saying by the Iranian Labour News Agency.
More than one-tenth of Iran's 70 million people use the Internet and the figure is increasing very rapidly. Cyber cafes have for several years been popular hangouts for young people who use the net to chat, find new music and films, and also for news and research.
Iran's rulers have been well aware of the influence of the Internet and with its increasing popularity have, for several years now, been controlling access to sites through extensive filtering. A committee set up by the country's Supreme Cultural Revolution Council as well as a judiciary committee meticulously check and issue filtering orders.
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |