Iran disrupts Web as anniversary crowds gather
By NAZILA FATHI, The New York Times
In an effort to disrupt communications and head off huge opposition demonstrations planned for Thursday, the Iranian authorities on Wednesday drastically slowed Internet service in Iran and shut down text messaging services, and an official said that Gmail, the Google e-mail service, would be blocked.
News reports from Tehran on Thursday said thousands of pro-government demonstrators had taken to the streets to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution that toppled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and ushered in the theocracy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
State television showed thousands of pro-government demonstrators carrying often identical banners marching toward the central Azadi Square to hear a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The Associated Press reported.
The television showed big crowds in the square waving Iranian flags and pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Such anniversaries are traditional days of celebration. But since an uprising began in June after the disputed presidential election, protesters have used the cover of such public events to take to the streets. And soon after 10 p.m. Wednesday in Tehran, forbidden cries of “God is great” could be heard echoing from the city’s rooftops, a sign that opposition protests, the first since December 27, would go ahead despite the government’s efforts to thwart them.
The authorities have warned that they intend to confront protesters harshly. Witnesses quoted by The A.P. said the police deployed hundreds of officers in central Tehran to block protests. At least eight people were killed by the security forces in protests in December, and two men linked to the opposition were hanged this month.
The opposition movement has relied heavily on the Internet, using text messaging, e-mail and videos to spread information about the demonstrations and the crackdown by the government.
It was not immediately clear if Gmail would be blocked permanently, but users inside Iran said that because of the extremely slow speed of Internet service, they had been unable to open Gmail or the Yahoo e-mail service for the last week.
Google confirmed “a sharp drop in traffic” that could not be attributed to equipment failure on its end. “Whenever we encounter blocks in our services we try to resolve them as quickly as possible,” a spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said, “because we strongly believe that people everywhere should have the ability to communicate freely online. Sadly, sometimes it is not within our control.”
Some communications experts believe that the authorities’ efforts to block Gmail could be related to Google encryption, which prevents the government from reading e-mail. Yahoo and Hotmail have not been similarly affected, one monitor said.
Whatever its motivation, the government described its e-mail disruptions as well intentioned. Saeed Mahdyun, a telecommunications official, told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that Gmail would be blocked to encourage users to switch to local e-mail services.
The government announced last week that it was starting a national e-mail service to replace foreign ones, as a way to build “trust” with the people. But the opposition says most people use Gmail and Yahoo precisely because they are suspicious of local e-mail services, which they strongly suspect are monitored by the government.
Communications experts doubted the effectiveness of the government’s campaign. “Asking the entire country to switch their e-mail service is a tall order, even by Iranian standards,” wrote Robert Faris, research director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, in an e-mail message.
Continuing a crackdown that has produced dozens of arrests in recent weeks, the authorities also arrested at least six members of the Bahai faith in Tehran on Wednesday, the Committee of Human Rights Reporters reported.
The government has outlawed the Bahai faith since the 1979 revolution. A group of seven Bahai leaders were put on trial on Jan. 12 on charges of threatening national security.
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from New York, Alan Cowell from Paris and Ashlee Vance from San Francisco.
