Cyber-security enables Ahmadinejad's crackdown

By Troy Nelson

Is it any wonder that there is a blackout by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week of nationwide attempts by Iranian citizens to commemorate, by celebration and protest, the 31st anniversary of their 1979 Revolution? Consider this declaration from last fall:

...authorities announced they were deploying a special police unit to sweep Web sites for political material and prosecute those deemed to be spreading insults and lies.

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi saw this censor bird coming home to roost and knew Iranian citizens would be the nest. The videos at Mousavi's Facebook page testify to this oppressive nesting by Iranian authorities. Mousavi was a candidate who ran against Ahmadinejad in the Iranian elections in the summer of '09.

News of an Iranian cyber-security force was reported last fall. Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam had a created a new form of official police business - patrolling Iran's internet with "truth squads" to sniff out and target any voices of opposition to Iranian leadership. The man responsible for this prosecution is Police Colonel Mehrdad Omidi.

In Iran non-MSM outlets are growing in influence. Mr. Mousavi acknowledges that there are few means available by which an interested Iranian can be informed but that there is a hunger by their citizens for "unsanitized" truth. Mr. Mousavi has some rather democratic-like notions:

We want guarantees for healthy elections. We want freedom of the press and speech. ... Islam is the religion of logic, not the religion of breaking pens and mass closures of newspapers.

Journalist Akbar Montajabi, in describing the electronic surveillance squads as a check on free press and electronic communications, said, "Authorities know that the Internet is one of the few available channels for the opposition to make its voice heard." Those Iranian authorities were equally observant and are now shuttering that narrow portal to the world.

The man who puts the "Mad" in Ahmadinejad has done his all to silence and nullify those challenging his authority as the "legitimately elected" leader of Iran. The present oppression originated from Iran's presidential elections last summer. Mahmoud's critics were harassed, beaten, imprisoned, and killed simply for letting their opinions be known and gathering publicly.

Now Iran has an electronic version of truth squads patrolling their Internet to ferret out those doing real reporting including Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, leaders who protested specifically the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's administration and June ‘09 re-election. The present jack booting by Mahmoud was facilitated with the establishing of his Orwellian cyber-security forces. They were forewarned of citizen's gatherings through their spying of Internet and phone communications. The cyber-security tree planted just three months ago is already bearing fruit. For their efforts at "rooting out sedition Ahmadi-Moqaddam and Omidi must believe they have bonus virgins awaiting them in the afterlife.

However, let's keep this Iranian "cyber-security" thing hush-hush - we wouldn't want Barack to get any ideas.

Here's to Mssrs. Mousavi and Karroubi and all Iranians who covet a more open, less radical government, and are willing to sacrifice much in the struggle for such.