Iran: Establishing the First "Anti-Censorship Shelter"

We carried this item in yesterday's updates but I thought it could be so significant that I wanted to re-post it in a separate entry. Comments and guidance from readers most welcome:

Reporters Without Borders has launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” for use by foreign journalists, bloggers, and activists.

The organization said at a gathering in Paris, “At a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, we are making an active commitment to an Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all by providing the victims of censorship with the means of protecting their online information.”

The initiative, pursued with the communications security firm XeroBank, offers free high-speed anonymity services, including encrypted email and web access, to those who use the Shelter Connection through a Virtual Private Network routes traffic across XeroBank’s gigabit backbone network. As it passes from country to country, mixed with tens of thousands of other users, it creates a virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network.

The network will be available not only to users of the Shelter in Paris but also to their contacts anywhere in the world and to all those identified by Reporters Without Borders. They will be able to connect with the XeroBank service through access codes and secured, ready-to-use USB flash drives.

Iran Analysis: Assessing Europe's Sanctions & Tehran's Oil (Noel)

Writing on Race for Iran, Pierre Noël offers an interesting analysis of European sanctions and Iran's oil and gas position, both regarding exports and imports. In the end, its significance is not as much economic --- Noël does not, for me, get to the heart of the tensions over whether Iran can satisfy its domestic demand, given the gap in imports and production left by the withdrawal of foreign companies, as well as cope with the restrictions on its exports --- as political: "Any issue that allows EU [European Union] member states to present a united front and make Europe exist on the world stage looks like a gift from heaven":

Iran is a country with very large reserves of natural gas, a lot of it relatively low-cost to produce.  With the right investment, Iran could become a gas exporter of global significance in about a decade.  Europe is one of the largest gas markets in the world.  Its combination of liberalized electricity markets and ambitious environmental policies has the effect of favoring gas as a fuel for power generation, at least in the mid-term.  Russia’s position in the European gas market raises concerns about market power and the politicization of gas supplies from Russia.  The EU supports new gas pipeline projects from Central Asia and the Middle East through Turkey to diversify Europe’s sources of natural gas; the availability of Iranian gas could be essential to the success of this diversification strategy.  Russia, on the other hand, should want to prevent or delay the emergence of Iran as a large gas exporter.

However, there are a number of uncertainties, which, taken together, raise serious questions about the practical validity of these interlinked propositions.  First, at the moment we do not know to what extent the latest EU sanctions will add to the difficulties already experienced by the Iranian oil and gas industry to source technology and finance.  These is a log of oil and gas activity going on in Iran, but large-scale gas export projects combining complex financing and cutting-edge engineering are not part of this activity.  This is certainly the case for LNG [liquified natural gas] projects, an area where the relevant technology is still largely controlled by Western companies; it is unclear to what extent big pipeline export projects could be carried on.

Second—and more fundamentally—it is far from certain that becoming a large gas exporter is a strategic priority for Iran, or even a clearly defined objective.  Iran’s potential to become a large gas exporter has been recognized for decades, but that potential has never materialized.  Iran imports roughly 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year (bcm/y) from Turkmenistan and exports roughly the same amount to Turkey.  The Islamic Republic’s small export contract with Turkey is notoriously unstable and has led to numerous rows over price and delivery.  European majors such as Total and Shell have had a terrible experience negotiating with Iran over LNG projects (and, during the 1990s, over oil projects as well).  When the European companies pulled back from new projects in Iran three years ago, ostensibly because of sanctions, the companies were not in a position to make final investment decisions on these projects for commercial reasons.

Becoming a large gas exporter would require a strategic decision by Iran, based on a wide political consensus—such as the one underpinning the Iranian nuclear program—to open the sector for real to foreign investors.  There is deep opposition to such a move in the Iranian political culture and the culture of its oil and gas bureaucracy, rooted in the memories of the U.S.-sponsored coup of 1953 following the nationalization of British oil concessions by the nationalist Mossadegh government.  If becoming a large gas exporter was a strategic objective for Iran, then the Iranian government would appear hopelessly incompetent at pursuing it.  Bu tgeology is not destiny; Iran may not want to be the next Qatar.

Furthermore, Iran is itself a large and fast-growing gas market, now 30% larger than the largest European markets, the UK and Germany.  Iran needs to continue developing some of its reserves simply to supply its domestic market; that is what Iran’s gas-related exploration and production activity has been about for some time and—I would suggest—that is what Iran’s gas-related exploration and production activity will continue to be mainly about.  The existing sanctions have been effective at killing proposed LNG export projects—but these projects might not have gone ahead anyway, in the absence of sanctions, for commercial reasons.  There is no indication that the sanctions have had any impact on the growth of gas production in Iran.  I do not know to what extent the Iranian industry’s exploration and production effort relies on European technology and services that would be made unavailable by new EU sanctions, and would not be replaceable by technology and services from Asian or South American companies.

This does not mean that Iran has no strategic energy policy.  In the context of the standoff with the “international community” over its nuclear program, Iran is obviously trying to use the attractiveness of its energy resources and geographical position to its political benefit.  The growing interest of Chinese oil and gas companies in Iran has been widely documented—but it has not led to any new gas export project.  Turkey’s ambition to increase its access to Turkmen gas via Iran has already been discussed on www.TheRaceForIran.com (see here andhere).  Given how strategic Turkmen gas (and the trans-Caspian pipeline) is to Europe’s Nabucco concept, Iran has an option to provide Turkey with both access to gas and leverage on Europe.  The Iran-Pakistan pipeline project, for which the Pakistani government has just reaffirmed its support, is another example where Iran uses its energy assets strategically to raise the cost of the U.S.-EU Iran policy.

The final point is about Europe’s plans for a large pipeline across Turkey that would bring gas from Central Asia and the Middle East to the EU, especially south-east and central Europe....

Read rest of article....

The Latest from Iran (1 July): Establishing the Pattern

2025 GMT: Today's All-is-Well Alert: Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Behrouz Alishiri has said that new UN sanctions have proven futile, as transactions in Iran's investment market have risen 10 percent since the passage of the UN resolution.

Alishiri added that, according to the reports of the International Monetary Fund, foreign investment in Iran rose from $900 million in 2007 to $3 billion in 2009.

NEW Iran Interview: Ahmad Batebi “The Green Movement Goes Underground”
Iran Eyewitness: “Life Continues for People…With the Hope of Change” (Fatemeh)
Iran Special: The Significance of the “Universities Crisis” (Verde)
The Latest from Iran (30 June): Assessing “Crisis”

1925 GMT: Oil Squeeze. Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market, is recognising US sanctions by restricting cover for any ships carrying petroleum to Iran.

1815 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? Well, this weekend, the President will visit Nigeria.

It could be that Ahmadinejad fancies a change of scenery. Perhaps he got one of those special e-mails offering him a lot of money if he helped get the funds of a late President/General/businessman out of the country. Or maybe there is some connection with Nigeria taking over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council.

1805 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Activists report that Narges Mohammadi , the vice-chair of Shirin Ebadi's Center for the Defenders of Human Rights, has been released on $50,000 bail.

1800 GMT: Speaking of Universities and Threats. BBC Persian reports that some applicants for Iran's universities have received a threatening text message warning that, if they participated in post-election protests last year, they will be ineligible for acceptance regardless of their performance on entrance examinations.

The head of the government agency that administers the examinations has harshly criticised the sending of the messages. Iran Unfiltered concludes that this is an example of "hardline" elements of the regime acting without the consent and probably the prior knowledge of officials.

1750 GMT: The Universities Crisis. The dispute between Parliament and President over Islamic Azad University, analysed by EA's Mr Verde yesterday, has finally hit the non-Iranian mainstream press. The Guardian of London offers a summary, framing the battle as "a bitter political battle for control between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his most powerful rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani".

1740 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activists claim that the Iranian government has informed the International Labour Organization that Mansour Osanloo, a leader of Tehran's bus union, is due for release.

The Interational Transport Workers Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation have welcomed the news but also insisted that 52 other innocent trade unionists should be freed.

1605 GMT: Cyber-Shelter. Reporters Without Borders has launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” for use by foreign journalists, bloggers, and activists.

The organization said at a gathering in Paris, "At a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, we are making an active commitment to an Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all by providing the victims of censorship with the means of protecting their online information.”

The initiative, pursued with the communications security firm XeroBank, offers free high-speed anonymity services, including encrypted email and web access, to those who use the Shelter Connection through a Virtual Private Network routes traffic across XeroBank's gigabit backbone network. As it passes from country to country, mixed with tens of thousands of other users, it creates a virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network.

The network will be available not only to users of the Shelter in Paris but also to their contacts anywhere in the world and to all those identified by Reporters Without Borders. They will be able to connect with the XeroBank service through access codes and secured, ready-to-use USB flash drives.

1545 GMT: Larijani "Mans Up". Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani continues to put forth the even-tougher-than-the-President line on international matters.

Speaking at the end of an Islamic Inter-Parliamentary summit in Damascus, Larijani said the Americans' ulterior motive in imposing new sanctions lay not in Tehran but in the West Bank and Gaza: "We are told that Iran's approach toward Palestine is important for them [the US], and they think they can change our will by pressuring us."

Larijani added, "Considering the Zionist regime's plots, countries in the Islamic world should stand beside each other."

1400 GMT: Rewriting the Past for the Present. The head of the Basiji militia, Mohammad Reza Naqdi has announced a new Basij Cyber Army. To introduce this advance in Iranian warfare, Naqdi declared that the Soviet Union was toppled by Iranian martyrs, and those fighters also ensured Zionists are surrounded by Hamas and Hezbollah today.

1220 GMT: Refugee Watch. OMID Advocates have published an extensive, vital study, "Report on the Situation of Iranian Refugees in Turkey".

1125 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Pedram Rafati, a student activist at Amir Kabir University, has been sentenced to two years in prison and fined. Reports claim that the presiding judge, Abolghassam Salavati, threatened Rafati with a longer term if he appeals.

Labour activist Khosro Boukani has been given a two-year sentence.

0945 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Hossein Marashi, former Vice President and relative and ally of Hashemi Rafsanjani, has returned to jail after a temporary release during his one-year sentence.

Professors and students have demanded the release of Ehsan Abdoh Tabrizi, a Ph.D. candidate at Durham University in Britain. Tabrizi was detained on Ashura during a visit to his relatives.

0935 GMT: Economy Watch. Sadegh Mahsouli, the Minister of Welfare and Social Security, has announced that the  subsidy reduction plan will be implemented in six provinces --- Isfahan, Sout Khorasan, Kermanshah, West Azerbaijan, Bushehr, and Golestan --- from July.

Minister of Housing Ali Nikzad has expressed his concern about a "housing bazaar gone mad", resulting in extremely high rents.

Six million families will receive a basket of goods for Ramadan, with a reduction of 20 percent in price.

0930 GMT: The Battle Within. Fatemeh Bodaghi, the President's deputy for judicial affairs, notes that complaints against member of Parliament Elyas Naderan, a vocal critic of the Government, and (even more politically interesting) Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf are still in court and asks Iran's judiciary why they have not been handled.

0920 GMT: Spinning the Nuclear Talks. What is highlighted in Khabar Online's coverage of the statement by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: his call for renewed discussions between Russia, the US, France, and Iran.

What's missing: Lavrov's pre-condition that Iran suspend the attempt to enrich uranium to 20 percent.

0915 GMT: A Challenge to Moscow. Iran's Minister of Defense, Ahmad Vahidi, has demanded Russian delivery of S-300 missiles to Tehran. The shipment has been held up for months amidst the international manoeuvres over sanctions and Iran's nuclear programme.

0910 GMT: The Fall-Out from the Attack on Khomeini. Another message from a cleric for Seyed Hassan Khomeini, who was shouted down by regime supporters when he tried to speak at the 4 June for his late grandfather....

That is far from unusual. What is distinctive this time is that the backing comes from a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, seen as a bulwark of the regime. Hojatoleslam Dr. Ahmad Ahmadi wrote to Hassan Khomeini, "I was stunned when I heard of this ugly uproar."

0755 GMT: The Voices of Women. Zahra Rahnavard has asserted that joining international conventions is the best way to prevent domestic oppression.

Female followers of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri have asked Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the leading Shi'a cleric in Iraq, to insist on a reopening of Montazeri's offices, recently sealed by Iranian authorities.

0750 GMT: Irony, Sarcasm, or a Message for Ahmadinejad? Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani offered this nugget to the press in a meeting with Bahrain's Foreign Minister on Tuesday, "The strategic policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Iraq is the formation of a national unity government with the presence of all political, religious and ethnic groups."

Now, Mr Larijani, is your tongue in your cheek or are you really pushing the idea of "national unity" not only for Iraq but for its neighbours? (And if it is the latter, does Fars News understand what you are doing?)

0745 GMT: Websites for Human Rights. An EA reader brings to our attention CrowdVoice: Tracking Voices of Protest, which included a section with news on "Prisoners of Conscience in Iran".

0735 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Token Sanctions. Iranian state media say that President Ahmadinejad has announced a boycott of Western companies and goods in retaliation against sanctions by the US and UN. Included are Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and Nestle.

Hmm.... Not quite sure why Ahmadinejad is presenting this as "new". I certainly couldn't get hold of an evil Coke when I was in Tehran --- instead, I got hooked on the politically correct (and quite tasty) Parsi Cola.
0725 GMT: More on Depression in Tehran. Yesterday we noted the headline, via Iranian Labor News Agency, on a study of the emotional state of Tehran residents: 30% depressed.

Rooz Online offers much more on the study, by Tehran's Aria Strategic Studies Center, and on press coverage. The "30%" refers to severe depression; another 28% claim to suffer from mild depression. The report says concerns about marriage, housing, employment, and income are among those that have caused anxiety and unease among Tehran residents.

The official unemployment is now 14%, with higher rates amongst youth and university graduates.

0710 GMT: Cyber-Development. The International Committee for Human Rights in Iran has launched a podcast. This week's topic: "Will more political prisoners face execution soon?”

0620 GMT: Nuclear Front. Another signal that talks on Iran's uranium enrichment may resume: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran will respond to a Russian proposal to meet with the Vienna Group (US, Russia, and France) after consulting with Brazil and Turkey.  He suggested that the discussions be held in Tehran.

Mottaki offered no comment, however, on the US-Russia-France pre-condition that Iran halt efforts to produce 20% enriched uranium.

0610 GMT: We have posted a feature, "The Green Movement Goes Underground", the third part of Persian2English's interview with activist Ahmad Batebi.

0450 GMT: Wednesday was another day in what seems to be the pattern of Iranian politics, now 12 1/2 months after the disputed Presidential election. Opposition activity was relatively muted, at least on the public front, while the Government tried to deal (or sometimes evaded) a series of conflicts within the establishment.

A follow-up to one of those possible emerging conflicts: Rooz Online have now published an English version of Mohammad Reza Yazdanpanah's lengthy article claiming that pro-Ahmadinejad members of Parliament are turning on the Motalefeh Party, a key group in Iranian politics since 1979, with the Islamic Azad University argument as a catalyst.

Iran Interview: Ahmad Batebi "The Green Movement Goes Underground"

Persian2English have now published the third part of a recent interview with activist Ahmad Batebi, now living in exile in the US. The first two parts, “People’s Movement Will Stay Alive with Knowledge and Information” and  "The Green Movement and Mousavi" are already posted on EA:

Maryam: Everybody had high expectations for 11 February (22 Bahman). However, big demonstrations were not materialized. Security forces cracked down on a large scale. Why weren’t people able to protest similarly to Ashura (27 December) and Student Day (7 December)?

Batebi: As I mentioned, the more time that passes, the more immune the regime becomes [to protests], and they learn the ways to crackdown on and suppress the people. Yet, there were [still] several demonstrations.

One of the developments after the election was that the Ministry of Intelligence, which is the main security establishment, was not able to control people through its traditional methods and operations. This is when the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) entered the scene. The IRGC practically took control of security operations and also took the Intelligence under its supervision. The IRGC operates much more ruthlessly- it beats and kills people.

We saw the events that unfolded on 27 December. One of the problems that the IRGC faced was that it had trusted the Ministry of Intelligence and had accepted the data and statistics that the Ministry had provided on the number of people who were or would be gathering in main squares. It had divided tasks and forces based on this data, which was somehow incorrect. Moreover, people had changed their strategy. Those who were leading people from outside Iran had planned to undo all the calculations, and the regime failed in controlling the people. This resulted in the IRGC acting more professionally the next time. It deployed much more forces and planned to take control on 11 February.

The Green Movement does not have [access to] radio, TV, or newspapers, and cannot spread the news and information like the Islamic Republic. The difference between 27 December and 11 February was that on Ashura, there were religious ceremonies held all over, so one could be anywhere in the city. People attended these ceremonies and, therefore, the movement was able to be everywhere. However, on 11 February , the routes [of the demonstrations] were predetermined. If the movement wanted to show itself it had to take these routes. [Security forces] had closed all the roads from the day before.

One of my friends who was in Iran said that he was with a friend who had a Basij membership card. They were going to attend the rally. He said, “We saw groups of Basijis who had come from Qom, Mashhad, etc. and they were not letting any of us in. The organization was so strong that strangers were not able to enter. The more we approached Azadi Square, the tighter the security became, and they stopped us before reaching the square. We told them we are Basijis. They asked us for the secret word.” This shows they had a password so no outsider would be able to enter.

Now the question is, why is it that the Green Movement could not succeed? [Regime forces] had organized way ahead of time. They had formed teams to prevent any outsider from joining the rally and they closed all the routes. When the ruling establishment is so powerful, this is the result. Before, people attended protests on 20-30 specific days and they were successful. On this one day, the people were not able to because of the regime’s organization. This was not due to the movement’s weakness, but it was because we did not have the same resources that the regime has at its disposal.

Maryam: After 11 February many supporters of the Iranian people’s movement in the West stepped aside. I do not want to say that we are witnessing a decline, but the situation is calming down. Why has this happened? Is it all because of 11 February?

Batebi: The outside world’s understanding of the movement is very different from what is happening inside Iran. The western world or the media think that movement means demonstrations, and if the latter doesn’t exist, nor does the former. However, we know that the culture of the Iranian people is different than that of the outside world. The fact that [the Iranian people] write slogans [on walls and banknotes] in the colour green and distribute cassettes and CD’s demonstrates that the movement is alive. The movement is learning how stay alive without incurring deaths and arrests. The movement is transferring from one form to another.

In all social movements across the world, you see that when a movement goes underground, for a very short period of time, the activists become slower. This is not sluggishness, but rather the period of transformation. We are passing through this phase. This time, when we have protests in June, we will have less people arrested, less people killed, and that is how people will learn. It is natural that the government learns how to suppress people and the people learn how to resist.



Maryam: You mean that the movement is going underground?

Batebi: Yes, it is, and it should. In the 1979 revolution, too, the movement became underground. That is why it succeeded.



Maryam: What do you say to the argument that western media does not focus on human rights [in Iran] and focuses more on the nuclear issue?

Batebi: Well, it is true, but we cannot tell the world to be the way we want it to be. The world is saying that this is my language and these are the issues I pay attention to. We cannot say, “Why do you pay attention to this issue [instead of the other one]?”  We have to see what they want to broadcast. Then we need to publish that and present it to the media in a package that follows [a specific] format.

The nuclear issue is the world’s concern. It is the concern of world governments, and this concern is reflected to the media from the top. The Iranian nuclear issue is important for the international community because it can endanger the world’s security. Governments pay attention to it and convey this concern to the media. However, the human rights issue is conveyed to the media from the bottom, and then the media can, in turn, convey it to the governments. We have to keep the media updated on all the instances of human rights abuses. We should send the media films, reports, translations [of the news], and articles. This will result in the media publishing and broadcasting [news on human rights issues in Iran]. Consequently, governments will pay attention.