One electronic threat was that someone would “cut his throat.” In another message they wrote “the death is coming to you soon soon.” He says he still doesn’t know who send these messages (they’re all anonymous), but he suspects — based on past experience — range from Basij militia, Revolutionary Guards Corps Cyber Affairs Division and/or some mullahs or students of seminary schools.

Fariborz said: “this is not the first time I am receiving this kind of threats but this is getting out of hand.” He keeps multiple blogs in English and Persian language. “I have been writing for many years, it seems I made more enemies in radical camp both inside and outside of Iran.”

His first blog, called “Can we think” started in 2004 and used the Farsi-language Persionblog CMS. Later he moved the blog to another Farsi-language blogging system, Blogfa. Government authorities blocked both incarnations and  they were taken offline.

“I wasn’t surprised because basically I was passed all red lines by criticizing clergies, their politics, human rights violations, religion and the whole shebang thing,” Fariborz wrote later. “I stopped blogging for awhile but later I decided to move on and write in Blogger.com that no one might delete my blog for it’s contents.”

Those contacting The Committee about the threats said “He is very dear close friend of us and we should do something about it.” One said, “I have to say that I do not agree with all his opinions, no, we do have big differences, but I am afraid if we don’t do anything now, something will happen to him and I’ll regret for the rest of my life. I think if we publicize this there would be less room for idiots who send death threats.”

“In order to shut me down, they have targeted me with malicious death threat campaign for sometime,” Fariborz wrote in one post.  Later, he said, after examining the IP addresses of the senders, “I think threats to my life comes from Iran’s intelligence agents; it is organized and systematic.”

“I chose “Rotten Gods” for this blog because Gods are rotten and only imaginary fantasies that some humans came with it but as you might know, this didn’t sit well with Islamic Iran authorities so they have blocked it since the early days of this blog. So my fellow Iranian audience use proxy softwares and other tools in order to reach out to this blog and other blocked blogs.” — Fariborz

A Persian-English forum launched by Freedom House defined Rotten Gods blog as: “This blog focuses on discussing human rights, covering everything from public stonings and floggings to women’s rights in sports.”

In December 2007, he founded Stop Torturing Us, a blog to watch the situation of torturing in Iran. In April 2008 he founded the online directory Iranians’ Blogs, a clearinghouse of English blogs written by Iranians inside and outside of Iran. He has also written in Mideast Youth and Amnesty International blogs about Human Rights violation in Iran.

In May 2008 Fariborz founded Iranian Atheist, but it wasn’t active until recently. Later that year he started Persian Atheist, a Farsi-language blog, geared toward the use of science and reason to counter religious ideology. Fariborz has written a detailed article about Apostasy in Iran and its deadly punishments.

The Committee hopes that any threats against Fariborz will come to an immediate halt, as the directory Iranians’ Blogs shows that his opinions are widely held by a number of Persian bloggers who all deserve the right to express themselves and cannot be silenced. We do also echo Fariborz’ caution to other bloggers. While we encourage all to express their views, people must assess their own individual situations and ability to take on certain risks.

We encourage those who plan to express ideas that could put themselves in danger to consider covering their online tracks through proxy servers, email addresses not tied to their real identities, the use of false names and personal descriptions and anything else that may help their safety.

Followers of this blog may remember last year when Omid Reza Misayafi died in prison in Iran. Omid was sentenced to two and a half years for “insulting” Iranian religious leaders.

NOTE: This post was written by the listed author along with substantial parts by friends of Fariborz Shamshiri.

This Firefox extension was inspired by the launch of Google’s encrypted search option. We wanted a way to ensure that every search our browsers sent was encrypted. At the same time, we were also able to encrypt most or all of the browser’s communications with some other sites:

Google Search
Wikipedia
Twitter and Identi.ca
Facebook
EFF and Tor
Ixquick, DuckDuckGo, Scroogle and other small search engines
and lots more!

Firefox users can install HTTPS Everywhere by following this link.

As always, even if you’re at an HTTPS page, remember that unless Firefox displays a colored address bar and an unbroken lock icon in the bottom-right corner, the page is not completely encrypted and you may still be vulnerable to various forms of eavesdropping or hacking (in many cases, HTTPS Everywhere can’t prevent this because sites incorporate insecure third-party content).

I know Wes’ work from the 2008 RNC in St. Paul, MN and the 2009 G-20 in Pittsburgh, PA., where we both worked with Indymedia. I interviewed him after he was denied entry to Canada in early 2010 to cover the protests against the Olympics.

After the Oscar Grant verdict in Oakland, Wes was covering the protests when cops arrested him while filming and charged him with arson, giving him $125,000 bail. You can see in the video he took during his arrest in Oakland that there wasn’t even a candle in sight.

Wes was in jail for 5 days. The ridiculous arson charge was later dropped and replaced with the usual misdemeanors handed out to independent media reporters at such events—failure to disperse, disorderly conduct, etc. The point was clearly to get Wes off the streets. As the cops understand very well, there would have been no trial of the officer who killed Grant without the presence of multiple cameras on the BART platform.

This interview above was excerpted from a broadcast of Submedia.tv, found at http://submedia.tv

Nigel Parry

Related Links
The 2010 Olympics and Repression of Independent Media (February 15th, 2010)

http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2010/02/15/temp/

U.S. independent journalist refused entry to Canada; questioned by U.S. Homeland Security (February 11th, 2010)

http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2010/02/11/u-s-independent/

“After initiating proceedings against the news and opinion website Noticiero Digital for alleged disinformation, the authorities are now targeting ordinary Internet users whose only crime is to express views on Twitter,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These utterly disproportionate measures confirm that the government’s strategy is to gain control of the Internet, a space that until now had been spared its censorship.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The authorities are treating Twitter users like criminals and challenging the view of the Internet as a space where freedom should prevail. President Chávez nonetheless maintains his right to affirm his presence and his opinions on the Internet, above all on his blog and his Twitter account.”

Luis Acosta Oxford (@leaoxford) posted the following message on his Twitter account on 30 June: “Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t say you weren’t warned… Pull out today… I’m telling you, there are just a few days left.”

The police seized the mobile phone from which the Tweet was allegedly sent, together with two external disk drives and USB flash drives belonging to the two suspects. They live in the southeastern state of Bolívar, 580 km from Caracas, and their Twitter accounts do not seem to have had a great deal of impact on Venezuelan Internet users.

More than 10 banks have been closed or placed under government control since November 2009. The investigations into the spreading of rumours and false information about the banking system began in March 2010, when the police began noticing a lot of online comments warning of an imminent “financial crash.”

The head of the Department of Forensic and Criminal Investigations said that investigators were initially trying to establish whether the two detainees and the 15 other suspects were in contact with a particular organisation that was trying to bring about a banking crash.

Former Vice-President José Vicente Rangel yesterday accused some Twitter users in Venezuela of spending all their time spreading rumours. Speaking on television on 13 March, President Chávez said: “The Internet cannot be a completely free space where anything is said and anything is done. No, each country must impose its own rules.”

A proposed organic law on telecommunications, information technology and postal services that has been submitted to parliament provides for the blocking of websites and the creation of a single point of entry for all Internet traffic, which would facilitate control and surveillance.

Explaining the decision, Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said that “media freedom in Lebanon and any civilised country reaches its limits when the content is pure slander and aims at undermining the head of state.”

Change and Reform MP Nabil Nicolas expressed shock at what he said were arrests for the “crime of expressing an opinion,” and called upon the President to “set the university students free immediately.” Arabic text follows:

اعتقال ثلاثة أشخاص بتهمة التشهير بالرئيس اللبناني على الفيسبوك

أمر النائب العام اللبناني سعيد مرزا باعتقال تم ثلاثة أشخاص بتهمة “التشهير” بالرئيس ميشال سليمان على الفيسبوك، كما تم إصدار مذكر بحث عن شخص رابع.

وأوضح وزير العدل إبراهيم نجار أن حرية الإعلام في لبنان وفي أي بلد متحضر تبلغ حدودها عندما يشكل المحتوى تشهيرا صريحا ويروم إضعاف رئيس الدولة.

وأصدر النائب البرلماني عن تكتل “التغيير والإصلاح” بيانا عبر فيه عن اندهاشه للاعتقالات بتهمة ارتكاب “جريمة التعبير عن الرأي”، ودعا الرئيس إلى “الإفراج الفوري عن الطلبة الجامعيين”.

Follow the Toronto G-20 story via the website of the Toronto Media Coop at http://toronto.mediacoop.ca

“Terrorizing Dissent” and “Democracy 101″ director targeted on way to cover Toronto protests

JUNE 24TH/2:31PM EST—In a telephone conversation with the RNC ’08 Report, protest film-maker Vlad Teichberg—director of the 2008 RNC documentary Terrorizing Dissent, and 2009 G-20 documentary Democracy 101—described his experiences at the border with Canada, while on his way to cover the G-20 in Canada, taking place this weekend.

Teichberg and Shelby Voice, a colleague from the Brooklyn, New York-based Glassbead Collective, were greeted by Canadian border officials who told him “We have your picture” and, after a brief discussion, were refused entry to Canada pending fulfillment of an extensive list of documentation requirements—see photograph here—before they would be allowed to enter Canada.

Requirements specified with circles on the form given to Teichberg and Voice included:

3. PROOF OF FOREIGN RESIDENCE (recent rent receipts, copy of mortgage, deed, various utility bills),

4. EVIDENCE OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT (bank statements, savings/chequing account, transaction books, income tax forms, etc)

5. EVIDENCE OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE (current stubs from unemployment insurance, welfare, disability pension, etc)

6. EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO EDUCATIONAL TIES/APPLICATION TO STUDY IN CANADA (valid school ID, letter from school official, letter of acceptance, outline & duration of course(s), proof of student loan/funds, etc)

8. CONFIRMED MEANS OF DEPARTURE FROM CANADA (airline, bus, train tickets with time and date indicated)

9. SUFFICIENT FUNDS OR ADEQUATE ARRANGEMENTS FOR YOUR INTENDED TRIP (cash, travellers cheques, letter from your Canadian host stating that they will provide for your financial & medical support/accommodations)

10. DESTINATION IN CANADA (address, telephone number, name of relative or friend)

Teichberg called the RNC ’08 Report from the U.S.-Canada border at Niagara Falls, where he and Voice were busy producing the materials with the goal of trying again to enter Canada to cover protests outside the Summit, which takes place June 26-27, 2010.

The RNC ’08 Report, which has worked with Teichberg on a variety of documentary projects since the 2008 RNC, will continue to follow the story and post updates as news breaks.

For more information about independent journalism and protest coverage, see the Documentaries section of the RNC ’08 Report, and read Nigel Parry’s “From St. Paul to Pittsburgh: Citizen Media is Not a Crime”.

UPDATE: Teichberg and Voice both were ultimately granted entry into Canada.

Follow the Toronto G-20 story via the website of the Toronto Media Coop at http://toronto.mediacoop.ca

Senator Joe Lieberman has proposed legislation to create a “kill switch” that would somehow give the United States president the ability to switch off the global internet, which Lieberman’s describes as a U.S. “national asset.” Hubris and obvious displays of the empiral reality asside, this should add further evidence to the world of the potential threat the United States poses on occasion as the “sole” super power.

The 197-page bill (PDF), “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act” is the latest  attempt by the U.S. and other governments to steal the internet away from users, as Prison Planet describes here.

As University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt says, “Unfortunately, too much of the core of the internet resides in the US – let’s put it this way, they cannot shut down machines in Australia, but they can completely isolate us and shut down certain core functions like the DNS … they can render the internet fairly useless for the rest of the world.”

“The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects “shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined,” reports ZDNet’s Declan McCullagh.

Co-sponsor of the bill Senator Susan Collins said,  “we cannot afford to wait for a cyber-9/11″ without describing what the hell a “cyber-9/11″ in her entirely asinine statement.

The Committee believes that it is dangerous when techno luddites hold too much power and feel it is for them to decide how much access people can have to a medium of open expression. Lieberman, Collins and anyone else who supports even one piece of puncuation included in this bill should be regarded as a threat to global freedom and human rights.

It almost seems like something so obvious shouldn’t need to be said: No one, no individual, group, organisation or government should have the ability to disable a global asset such as the internet for any amount of time ever. Even upon proposition such an idea should be attacked vigorously, and criticism must also be heaped upon those suggesting such a proposal. To many there may be a sense of irony that the power for collective censorship should ultimately be decided by a nation that attempts to position itself as the cradle of freedom in the modern age. We should remember that it is just a position, and that at the end of the day, governments will error on the side of repression unless kept in constant check by the global public.

Save the Internet has produced the above video to get people active about protecting Net Neutrality in conjunction with the Harry Potter Alliance.

The short appeal features John and Hank Green of the vlogbrothers; actor and blogger Wil Wheaton; Maureen Johnson, New York Times bestselling author for young adults and “Mashable’s Most Interesting Twitter User to Follow” (@maureenjohnson); Shawn Ahmed from the UnculturedProject, one of the most viewed and most subscribed to YouTube channels on global poverty; vloggers and musicians Kristina Horner (italktosnakes) and Luke Conard (lukeconard); and Adam Savage from Mythbusters.

“While the Internet allows people to create and share their work with the world without anyone’s permission, phone and cable companies like Comcast and AT&T want to control the Internet – deciding which content loads fast, and which doesn’t load at all. They could effectively silence artists and media makers everywhere, and you, too. ” — Megan Tady, Campaign Coordinator for Free Press.

Wikileaks founder Julian Asange

The Daily Beast reports: “Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Philip Shenon reports. Plus, Daniel Ellsberg tells The Daily Beast: “Assange is in Some Danger.”

Wikileaks has turned out to be The Test Case when it comes to whether the world Wide Web trumps any single national government’s attempts to halt the flow of information.

Julian Assange’s case highlights the fact that while activism may have gone digital, people are still human and vulnerable, especially when consolidating this kind of content down to a single person. On the one hand, Assange may want to take the “publish or perish” axiom literally. Should he throw all these alleged documents online ASAP, his personal safety risk would likely drop as the U.S. government shifts into damage control mode. On the other hand, you can’t get much better hype than this type of Tom Clancy prose in a news article.

Should he publish (my bias: hell yes he should), it would immediatley illustrate the NSA’s ability to take a website down. Wikileaks servers may be listed as being in Sweden, but they are in fact in far more locations. Could the United Stated effectively block an internationally mirrored website from being accessed around the world? It would be interesting to find out.

Still, the fact that the U.S. with its vast intelligence aparatus is claiming to be looking for Julian is also interesting. Assange is not hiding in a cave somewhere in the Pakistani/Afghan border region, he travels around and maintians a speaking schedule it seems. A few weeks ago he was in the U.S. Likely, Australia’s stripping Julian of his passport may have been somewhat of a blow as, you know, you can track someone who gets it stamped.

Classified information has a shelf life, and there’s something rather un-wiki-like in the idea that it’s really just one guy deciding what goes up and what doesn’t. Another route would be to disperse the publication of content outside of Wikileaks’ domains. Doing so would drastically complicate the matter of taking them offline. Though it may not include the branding Wikileaks wants to go with it.

It was just a few months ago that WikiLeaks published classified video of a US military helicopter killing civilians, and it would never have been seen by as many people if scads of those who downloaded it hadn’t retransmitted the footage via social video sites. That event turned the U.S. defense department’s eyes to Julian.

That video is reported to have been originally leaked by a Pentagon analyst named Bradley Manning who may have provided Wikileaks with a further  260,000 classified documents following a period of awakening after being stationed in Iraq and seeing what the United States government was responsible for there.

AntiWar.com writes “Assange was still in Australia as of last week, when he failed to attend a New York conference on the advice of his lawyer. Where he is since then is anyone’s guess, but the military seems to be feverishly trying to find out.”

The Committee hopes that wherever he is, he’s finding ways to disseminate his collection of documents — those obtained from Manning and elsewhere — to a wider group of people to process and post from international locations under a variety of methods. The sooner these enter the echo chamber of the web, with its myriad redundancies and multiple forms of archiving and syndication tools, the better. So long as they remain in the hands of the few (or a few more than before, as the case may be) there’s a much greater chance that they disappear back into the vaults. That would be a real tragedy.