Bloggers Influence Iranian Vote
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
When Iranians vote in Friday’s parliamentary election, millions will have been influenced by lively debate in the only domain their regime struggles to control: the Internet and blogosphere.
Newspapers are tightly controlled and television and radio channels carry a dreary diet of official propaganda.
But President Ahmadinejad comes in for heavy criticism from Iran’s youthful bloggers, who mirror a society in which two-thirds of the population are below the age of 30.
“Of all the defects Ahmadinejad and his team possess, the one that is astonishing is their attitude towards themselves,” writes a 24-year-old Iranian student, who blogs under the name “Tehran Post.”
“They behave like they’re heavenly beings, supreme in every quality and measure. The trademark of his government and supporters is exalting themselves and criticising others, especially the previous governments.”
Between three and four million Iranians use the Internet and perhaps 100,000 are active bloggers. As a proportion of all internet users, the Islamic republic could have the world’s highest number of bloggers.
“Yasser,” a 23-year-old student at Azad University in Tehran — the “worst university in the world,” as he calls it — recently watched the Oscar-winning film “The Lives of Others” and was struck by its portrayal of life in communist East Germany.
“I am really confused and bewildered after seeing the similarity of this movie with where I am living,” he writes. “In the film, you hear exactly the same quotes about the country and society.”
Unlike East Germany, Iran is not a totalitarian state. But its authoritarian rulers have undermined Friday’s parliamentary poll by preventing hundreds of candidates from running. About 90% of liberal reformist candidates have been barred. Since Mr. Ahmadinejad won power in 2005, the regime has closed three reformist newspapers. Five Web sites were blocked last month, allegedly for “poisoning the electoral environment.”
But the blogosphere is so huge and dynamic that the authorities cannot hope to smother all of its free voices. Iran’s reformist leaders believe the internet is having a great political impact.
