Youths in ‘Happy’ Video Find Iran’s Grip on Internet Is Still Tight
A screen shot from the Iranian teenagers’ video posted on YouTube shows them dancing on a rooftop in Tehran. Credit Via Associated Press
By RICK GLADSTONE, NYT
MAY 21, 2014
Six young Iranians who were arrested for posting a YouTube video of themselves dancing on Tehran rooftops to “Happy,” the globally infectious pop song, were released on bail on Wednesday as new details emerged of their possible mistreatment while incarcerated amid an outpouring of sympathy — including a subtly supportive Twitter post from Iran’s president.
The arrests of the six, who were all under 25 and included women not wearing their mandatory headscarves, were carried out over the weekend. They were taken into custody just as the president, Hassan Rouhani, was giving a speech arguing that Iranians should embrace the Internet instead of viewing it as an insidious Western threat to Islamic morals.
The six were shown on state television on Tuesday, backs to the camera, apologizing for having made the video, which was uploaded on YouTube in April and received more than 165,000 hits. The television broadcast also included an admonition from Tehran’s police chief, Hossein Sajedi, who told all young Iranians never to make such videos.
The episode appeared to reflect a broader clash between Iran’s religious conservatives and the faction represented by Mr. Rouhani, a relatively moderate cleric who was elected nearly a year ago partly on pledges to ease some of the political and social restraints in Iran, including censorship of the Internet.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
he critical point being missed by most people here is that there really is no difference in Iran’s government between “moderates” and “conservatives,” especially when the entire governmental structure — civil, judicial, economic, military, foreign policy — is answerable to the religious ruling council and the Supreme Leader in Khamenei.
It’s also important to remember that Rouhani was for a long time in charge of many of the military and security institutions that have been responsible for some of the most brutal crackdowns in the ’90s and start of the 2000s. So when we consider arrests such as this, they are unfortunately the norm and not the exception under Rouhani’s leadership. If you want more info, I suggest you check out the blog hassan-rouhani.info.
Fortunately folks on social media are rightly skeptical of his attempts to reach out to the West with nifty little tweets and pics, since he heads a government stubbornly refusing to change its brutal tactics. As an aside, it’s also noteworthy that under Rouhani’s leadership, Amnesty International now counts over 700 executions in Iran, most in horrific public hangings and many including women and children. How’s that for moderation?
Given all the terrible things in Iran, Syria and others at the behest of Iranian regime, it's hard to get worked up about these kids getting arrested, but if it helps snaps people around to really understand just how backwards Iran is and why loosening economic sanctions during nuclear talks without a concurrent improvement in human rights in Iran is really a dumb, dumb idea.
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