Tehran’s Lost Connection

Source: >Geneive Abdo, Foreign Policy.

During last year’s election turmoil in Tehran, the Iranian regime’s biggest foe often seemed to be 21st-century technology. While the regime cracked down on supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi — the so-called Green Movement — with decidedly pre-Web 2.0 tools like truncheons and tear gas, protesters used Twitter, YouTube, and other Web-based applications to publicize their cause, and the regime’s brutal response, to the rest of the world.

A year later, however, Iranian dissidents’ techno-euphoria is mostly a thing of the past. The regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared victory over the opposition this February, after the Green Movement’s call for massive demonstrations to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution were effectively blocked by the regime’s nationwide shutdown of both Internet and cell-phone access. The Greens, deprived of communications in a society where mass media are under complete state control, suffered a lackluster turnout, prompting some Iran watchers in Washington to (prematurely) declare the movement dead.