Iran Considering Plans For More Intrusion Into People's Privacy
As the Iranian parliament reviews the 7th development plan, lawmakers and legal experts say the plan further enables the government to invade people's privacy.
As the Iranian parliament reviews the 7th development plan, lawmakers and legal experts say the plan further enables the government to invade people's privacy.
Khabar Online website has quoted Iranian lawyer Omid Salimi-Bani as saying that the text of one ambiguous article shows the government is planning to monitor people's lifestyle to make sure that they adhere to its Islamic standards.
The lawyer said it is up to every individual to be or not be religious. But it seems the government even wants to monitor people's shopping and travel. He likened the plan to the Big Brother in George Orwell's novel 1984. He added that some of what the government is planning to do has been branded as "crime" in the Law Against Computer Crimes.
Salimi-Bani further said that the plan violates several articles of the Iranian Constitutional Law about citizens' privacy.
Meanwhile, Khabar Online also quoted lawmaker Jalal Rashidi Koochaki as saying "Why the government should want to know whether the people are spiritual? What is it good for? Why the government wants to monitor people's lifestyle?"
He criticized the plan's security approach where it says that "The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance should continuously monitor cultural aspects of people's life and their lifestyles in order to pave the way for research." Koochaki reiterated that this part of the plan is an elaborate violation of people's privacy.
Another Iranian lawyer, Hamid Reza Aghababaeian told Khabar Online, "No individual or organization is allowed to invade people's privacy with the pretext of collecting information for research." He added that it violates articles 22 to 25 of the Human Rights Charter. He also said that collecting such data without permission from the court and the police and security forces is illegal.
He reminded that, based on the Iranian Penal Code, only judges are allowed to request the monitoring of people's private data.
In another development, Iran's Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib told reporters that his ministry is considering to intervene several judiciary cases about the people's "mental or psychological security on social media.,” probably referring to a recent trend to label dissidents a threat to people’s mental wellbeing.
Asked if he did monitor social media, Khatib said: "If I do not monitor social media, then I cannot be the Minister of Intelligence." Responding to the question whether he would allow his children and grandchildren to be active in social media on their smart phones, the minister said: "We have agreed with my children that they should only use Iranian social media platforms."
Iranian social media applications are notorious for collecting and abusing people's private data, both for commercial and government intelligence purposes.
The Islamic Republic has banned all foreign social media applications, because it is afraid of the free flow of information and the likelihood of people organizing opposition using Facebook or Twitter.
Reports this week quoted hardliner commentator Mohammad Sadeq Kooshki as saying that "Instagram has become a venue to recruit terrorists." Kooshki added: "Unfortunately, social media platform including Instagram are not lawful in Iran. Terrorists can contact and recruit people on social media, so, Israeli and European intelligence agents do not need to meet people face to face for recruitment."
The government has banned foreign social media platforms in Iran, however, millions of Iranians use them by circumventing government restrictions by VPN (Virtual Private Networks) also known in Iran as filter breakers.
Earlier this week, the Biden Administration announced that some of Iran’s frozen funds in Iraq will go to Oman, acting as a conduit to release the money for purchasing non-sanctionable goods under US supervision. Iraq owes Iran around $11 billion for imports of gas and electricity, but US banking sanctions prohibit dollar transactions with Iran. In June, the US agreed to make $2.7 billion available for Iran’s humanitarian needs.
Despite this development, the Iranian currency, the rial, has not shown improvement and continues to trade at around 500,000 rials per US dollar, as its value has drastically depreciated in the past year.
Businessman Masoud Daneshmand expressed doubts about the impact of the released funds, stating that the Iranian government would not receive any cash directly. Instead, after Iran purchases goods like wheat, it can present invoices, and Oman will release the money following US verification. Hence, the government will not have additional funds to impact the currency market.
Others, however, disagree with this perspective. Some argue that any released funds, even for food and medicine, could free up other foreign currencies for purposes such as supporting armed proxy groups in the region or producing military equipment such as drones that are supplied to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Amidst the ongoing economic crisis, Iran’s annual inflation is estimated to be somewhere between 50-70 percent, in the absence of reliable figures. However, what is certain is that food prices have risen much faster. Media and even regime politicians have been saying for months that food price inflation is around 100 percent.
Nevertheless, Ahmad Kimiyai, an economist, believes that the release of frozen funds, though not in cash dollars, is still beneficial. It allows some assets to enter the country despite sanctions and can be used for humanitarian imports, addressing shortages of food and medicine.
However, he said it is much better that the money can be used for humanitarian imports instead of cash transfers. “This is better than if the money reached the government, because it might be tempted to do populist acts,” referring to cash handout schemes to the population.
“Now we are certain that goods will be imported that can reach the people’s dinner tables,” and help with shortages of medicine, Kimiyai said.
On the other hand, businessman Kamran Soltanizadeh, who is the head of Iran’s currency exchangers indirectly criticized government propaganda highlighting that the US has released the frozen funds. He argued that there has been no official statement about exactly how much, when and how funds have been released.
He also stressed that the Iranian government is injecting dollars and other hard currencies into the forex market to support the rial, and if it were not for these interventions, the national currency would have fallen further.
In one large gathering to mark the anniversary of the revered Shiite saint, Imam Hussein, son of the first Imam, Ali, mourners chanted:
“O Motherland, do you know why I’m devastated?
It’s because these people (the regime) only care about hijab.
They don’t see the poverty in our houses,
They have stolen so much from public coffers,
They don’t see the tears and laments of workers,
They don’t see that widows are destitute,
No bread on their tables,
That fathers are ashamed, and mothers distressed.
God be my witness that this is not the Justice of Ali!
All our problem is not a strand of hair!”
These verses were sung in the local dialect in Dezful in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province by the maddah whose role is reciting the praises of the prophet and his companions and mourning the slaying of his grandson, Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala. While the maddah sings, his audience rhythmically beat their chests and move in tandem.
In recent years some maddahs have increasingly been using the story of the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, Imam Hussein, and his martyrdom to express their opposition to an interpretation of Islam that the regime has been promoting for four decades during the Ashura ceremonies.
The Day of Ashura, the anniversary of the slaying of Imam Hussein and his 72 companions on the 10th of the Islamic lunar month of Muharram, is the highlight of the month-long mourning ceremonies. The Imam and his companions were killed in 680 in a battle that took place in the plain of Karbala in present-day Iraq.
Every year during Muharram, the beginning of which fell on July 19 this year, thousands of local mourning groups known as hey'at organize large congregations and street processions with thousands of participants.
Thousands of others usually gather along the streets to watch the procession of men rhythmically beating their chests or using a bundle of chains to beat their backs to the beat of massive drums amplified by speakers. The self-beatings symbolize the pain and suffering of the Imam and his companions in Karabla.
Unlike the fearless maddah in Dezful who openly referred to present time issues of hijab and destitution of the people, others voice their criticism in veiled terms, often in the form of verses associated with certain historical and revolutionary eras that their audience easily understands.
“Stop oppression, God’s blood has come to boil,
heavens and earth are wailing,
because the earth has been clothed in poppies,” a maddah and his congregation sang in the very religiously conservative city of Yazd.
“Poppies have sprung from the blood of the youth of the motherland!
And cypress trees have bent under the grief of their lost lives,” the congregation continued singing. This verse was taken from the very famous poem of Mirzaadeh Eshghi, a 19th century poet who dedicated it to the martyrs of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911).
By creating a parallel between their own time and circumstances and the time and circumstances that led to Imam Hussein’s martyrdom, they identify the regime and it leaders with the Arab ruler, Yazid, whose troops killed the Imam. The verses and steps are often practiced for months before the actual ceremonies.
Muharram ceremonies have been held for centuries in Iran and among Shiites in other countries. However, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the ceremonies and rituals have gained more prominence as the clerical government have made them a vehicle to show that the people are religious and loyal.
But increasingly mourning gatherings pop up around the country that include non-regime religious groups, who use the very Shiite ideology of seeking justice and condemning oppression to direct criticism at the clerical rulers.
Some people believe that the regime’s actions have resulted in the weakening of religion among Iranians while others argue that it is only the regime’s interpretation of Islam that has weakened and led to thousands of mosques being abandoned.
In a note published on Telegram Thursday entitled “Confiscation of History”, sociologist Ali Zamanian argued that using religious occasions such as Ashura to create an “ideological dichotomy” in which one side is all good and the other is all evil is unacceptable whether by regime-affiliated maddahs or those who sympathize with the opposition.
Zamanian, however, pointed out that critical maddahs’ expression of their frustration with the current economic crisis may show the government that it is not only those who believe in a secular state who oppose religious rule, but many religious people are “at the end of their ropes” too.
Even under the Shah, who was very proud of being the ruler of the only Shiite state in the world, the country was shut down for several days for the ceremonies and Ashura sermons were broadcast live on national radio.
