Tactic: Iranian Blog Declaration Against Filtering

Written by Hamid on June 17, 2008 – 10:54 pm -

Description: Iran has always been a land of filtering, but in recent months pressure on sites and blogs has increased. Recently, about 100 bloggers signed a declaration that condemns filtering and call for freedom of speech. They also asked the end of filtering. The declaration says that freedom of media has become more restricted than before. In recent weeks, several blogs and sites, especially the ones that write about political and social issues, have been filtered [blocked]. Several women’s blogs that are filtered too. At the same time, pro-government blogs and sites continue their activity and enjoy freedom. The declaration also notes that filtering and censorship are against the Declaration of Universal Human Rights.

Organizer: The blog Boyehkhak published[fa] the declaration and other bloggers supported it and signed it.

Purpose of Action: To try to convince the Iranian government not to filter blogs.

Organizing Tools: a declaration published on a blog

Outcome:It is very difficult to imagine that Iranian blogs’ protest against filtering can have any practical effect on the Iranian government. But when 100 blogs sign a declaration together, it shows that the cyber world is not a divided space.

Ease of Replication: It is easy to post a declaration on your blog. The hard part is getting other people to sign it. This is a classic organizing task. You need to contact people and organizations who you think also care about the issue - using e-mail, listservs, social networking groups and any other mass communication tools at hand - to convince people to sign your declaration.

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Posted in Blogs, Mid-East & N. Africa, Tactics | 4 Comments »

Action Alert: Support a Kurdish human rights activist

Written by Simon on June 10, 2008 – 10:44 pm -

Mohammed Sadigh KabodwandWhat? Send a mail to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei to express your concern for the medical condition of the Kurdish journalist and human rights activist, Mohammed Sadigh Kabodwand.

When? Now!

Where? Email or fax the letter below the “more” tag to:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic:
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei,

Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228
E-mail: info@leader.ir or istiftaa@wilayah.org

How? Just copy the letter below and paste it to your email.

Why? There are serious concerns for the health of Iranian Kurdish human rights activist and journalist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, who suffered a stroke in Evin prison on 19 May 2008 and has been denied access to adequate medical care. He has been held since 1 July 2007 on charges of “acting against national security”.

He was reportedly been denied access to medical help before and was held in very bad conditions in solitary confinement as well as being subject to torture.

Last month, two other Kurdish men (Kaveh Aziz Poor and Ebrahim Lotf Allahi) died while in government detention. It is suspected that both were beaten to death by government authorities. AKR again asks the international community to condemn these vicious acts.

Who is organizing the action? The campaign is lead by the lately relaunched Alliance for Kurdish Rights. The AKR is an independent and self-funded project started by a group of students and youth activists who wish to campaign for change and address the issue of Kurdish rights in the Middle East and abroad.

via Alliance for Kurdish Rights Read more »


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Posted in Action Alerts, E-Petitions, Mid-East & N. Africa | No Comments »

Campaign: Iranians oppose renaming Persian Gulf

Written by Hamid on June 2, 2008 – 12:31 am -

Description: In recent years, Iranians have launched a relatively successful digital campaign against the renaming of the Persian Gulf as the Arabic Gulf. Several magazines and sites have covered the news of this digital protest, including the BBC. The Persian Gulf is one of the most important national symbols for Iranians and any attempt to rename it creates strong reactions in Iran, both online and off. Here are some of the tactics used in the digital campaign:

Google Bombing

Pendar, an Iranian designer and blogger, shares how he started his google bombing campaign to oppose the renaming of the gulf:

In November 2004, National Geographic published a new edition of their World Atlas. In it, they had used the bogus name of Arabian Gulf in addition to the correct name Persian Gulf. So I made a mock page (+), resembling a 404 error message which said ” the gulf you are looking for does not exist“. I asked other bloggers to link to that page. The response was simply overwhelming. Within a week, hundreds of blogs and websites had taken part and the google bomb exploded, creating a frenzy of media hype. It appeared on an AFP article and Yahoo! News, It also made the first page of BBC news page.

You can go and check your self on Google and type Arabic Gulf and then see what is the first result: “The Gulf You Are Looking For Does Not Exist. Try Persian Gulf.”

e-Petition

In 2008 many Iranians got irritated while they discover the “darling” of the Internet , Google Earth made the same mistake and used the term Arabic Gulf and Persian Gulf together. A petition was launched on Internet which read:

We, the undersigned, through this letter, protest your irresponsible, unscientific actions, and demand an immediate and unconditional deletion of “Arabian Gulf” from Google Earth. Arbitrarily designating the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf is an irresponsible violation of all historical and International standards and would undermine the integrity of Google Earth.

So far total signatures are 755,732.

Hackers

Iranians’ digital activity to protest against renaming of Persian Gulf recently entered a more dynamic phase of action: Hacking Arabic Sites that use Arabic Gulf term. Ashyaneh, a group of Iranian hackers, say that they attacked several Arab language sites that renamed Persian Gulf and call it Arabic Gulf. This group claims that they hacked around 100 different sites.

Blogs

Blogs also play an important role to write on this subject and inform about lastest development. Recently several hundred Iranians demonstrated in front of UAE ambassy in Tehran and bloggers covered it. Mojgan Jamshidi says it is pity that security forces repressed such a peaceful demonstration. She has published several photos of the demonstration. Read more »


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Posted in Blogs, Campaigns, E-Petitions, Mid-East & N. Africa | 1 Comment »

Tool: SMS

Written by Mary on January 30, 2008 – 11:17 pm -

Tool Description: SMS (short message service) is the technical name for text messaging - notes sent between mobile phone users. Think of it as e-mail for mobile phones.

Activist Application: There are so many activist applications for SMS that we’ve put most of them after the jump. Here they are in brief: organize a protest in minutes, evade censorship by using SMS for communication that you cannot speak or e-mail (only true is some countries), election monitoring, activist security (”If I don’t text you every 2 hours, it means something is wrong), citizen journalism, and more to come….

Ease of Use: Easy. All mobile phones now have SMS built in. Just choose a phone number to send the message to, type the message, and press send. Pricing varies by country and carrier.

thousands of phones, thousands of uses for activists

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Posted in Asia, Mid-East & N. Africa, Mobile Phones, Tools | No Comments »