Iran’s Parliament Adopts Bill To Further Restrict Internet

In January, the minister of economy ordered all government-owned banks to pay up to $4,000 in small loans to salaried people without a guarantor or collateral. The decision came as four years of high double-digit inflation has impoverished the middle class and the new government, having had made lofty promises last year, felt obliged to make a gesture.

On Monday, Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf informed lawmakers that he received a letter from Khamenei asking the legislature and the presidential administration not to demand payments by banks that are beyond their financial resources to fulfill.

Ghalibaf said that when the government or parliament make decisions asking banks to undertake additional obligations, it simply forces the financial institutions to turn to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), which in turn must print more money. This leads to even more inflation, which has already been hovering around 40 percent since 2021.

The Speaker pointed at CBI chief’s remarks on Sunday that the banks and the central bank are not able to finance new programs without pushing inflation higher.

Banks in Iran are kept afloat by the CBI and in most cases are heavily indebted, while the government also has a 50-percent budget deficit.

Just in the past six months, liquidity jumped by $14 billion, CBI announced earlier this month. Last October, the CBI reported that liquidity had increased eightfold since 2013. In those 8 years, Iran was either under international sanctions or United States sanctions for a total of 5 years, losing hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and other revenues. The CBI during this time had to print money to pay the government’s bills.

President Ebrahim Raisi pledged upon assuming office last year that his government would not overburden banks by borrowing. However, it later issued bonds that are mostly sold to government-owned banks, which must turn to the central bank for money. In a vicious circle of borrowing from itself, the government simply prints more money – a practice that is not unique to the current administration.

Ghalibaf warned that the country cannot produce more oil – let alone export – and the current budget is already based on exporting 1.4 million barrels per day. The presidential administration wants even more money and that would demand daily crude production of 4 million barrels, which is an impossibility, he said.

Iran has failed to sufficiently invest money and technology in its oil and gas infrastructure in the past decades. Oil minister Javad Owji said last November that the country needs $160 billion to upgrade its oil and gas production.

But some economists in Iran ask why the financial situation has not improved despite higher oil sales in the past one year. Reports indicate that Iran has been exporting much higher volumes of crude to China, totaling more than $20 billion in 2021.

One explanation can be that China is not fully paying cash for its purchases. Another possibility is that Iran is replenishing its currency reserves depleted during sanctions instead of spending the money. A third possibility is that the additional sales have already financed close to $50 billion in imports in the past one year, without the government being forced to touch the remainder of its currency reserves.

The lifting of US sanctions in case of a nuclear agreement will not drastically change this picture, except raising oil revenues closer to $40 billion a year, which would ease the pain but not finance an economic reconstruction.

Etemad Online, website of reformist Etemad newspaper, quickly portrayed Saeed Khatibzadeh words as "Iran's siding with Russia."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran invites all sides to have restraint and believes that any action that caused escalation of tension should be avoided," Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement on the foreign ministry website. He said that NATO, under US leadership, had worsened the situation in by "meddling and provocative actions,” a likely reference to NATO refusing to rule out Ukrainian membership.

Reza Ghobeishawi, of the editorial board of conservative Asr-e Iran newspaper, tweeted Tuesday that the state broadcaster (IRIB) was biased. "IRIB's two o'clock news report on the Ukrainian crisis was fully supportive of Russia,” he wrote. “It censored the Russian troops' arrival into Ukraine.”

While social media had been awash with opinions and theories, most media in Iran stuck to reporting news with little analysis. Interest has warmed up since Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

Sacrificial meat

In tweets, supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have repeated his allegations in late January of a US-Russian “dirty deal” to invade Iran and Ukraine. The former president said he had “accurate knowledge” that the US would “allow Russia to invade Ukraine…[and] the US to move onto Iran.”

Amir Tafreshi, a founding member of the Justice-Seeking Student Movement, an Islamic student union, tweeted that Iran should condemnNATO for provocation and Russia for not respecting Ukraine's territorial integrity. "Any delay in the announcement of this policy will strengthen the suspicions that Russia dominates Iran's foreign policy,” he opined.

Iran's state broadcaster in its reports has highlighted that Yemen's Houthis, Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela have supported Russia's position. Among Iran's neighbors and allies, so far Turkey has condemned Putin's recognition of the breakaway Ukrainian regions.

Etemad-e Melli newspaper published a commentary by political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi saying that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would not affect the nuclear talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna, even if it had “a destructive effect on circumstances” once agreement was reached in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

Afifeh Abedi, researcher at the Center for Strategic Research, an arm of the Expediency Discernment Council, tweeted that Ukraine was “the living and perfect example of the sacrificial meat that Russia and the West have divided between themselves … It's Iranian statesmen's duty to only seek maximal securing of Iran's own national interests … as the sensitive stage of Vienna talks coincides with the developments in Ukraine…”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Tuesday that provocative measures and interventions by the United States led to drastic escalation of tensions.

"Unfortunately, NATO's provocative measures and interventions, led by the US, have further complicated the situation in the region”, he said.

The Islamic Republic is monitoring the developments with sensitivity and urges all sides of the conflict to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could aggravate the tensions, Khatibzadeh said.

President Vladimir Putin announced late Monday that Russia recognized the independence of two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine held by separatists, practically paving the way for the deployment of Russian troops.

Hours after Putin’s move, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his countrymen “are not afraid” announcing that it would deploy troops there to “maintain peace”.

The decision by Moscow has triggered international condemnation and a promise of targeted sanctions and a promise of targeted by the United States and the European Union.

An urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was held on the deepening crisis as the United States said the announcement by Putin was an “unprovoked violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

"We don't have do anything extraordinary this time because we are expecting a lot of production," Timipre Sylva said on the sidelines of a gas exporters conference in Qatar's capital Doha.

OPEC+ cut supplies in 2020 as the COVID pandemic reduced global demand but began marginally increasing supplies. However overall production has remained well below pre-pandemic levels bossting prices to 7-year highs of close to $100 per barresl.

"We are expecting more production if a nuclear deal with Iran works out (since) there will be production from them," Sylva added.

Months of indirect talks between Iran and the United States to revive a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned in 2018 by then-US President Donald Trump are in their final stage, diplomats have been saying, although some still believe major issues remain to be resolved.

A deal could pave the way for OPEC member Iran to raise its oil exports further, helping to ease what many analysts see as an acute tightness in the oil market.

Brent crude traded just below $100 a barrel on Tuesday, its highest since September 2014, as the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine heightened the risk of supply disruptions.

Arani has warned of a plunge in the rate of data transfer (bandwidth) allocated to Instagram, the only major social media platform not filtered, and a reduced general speed of mobile and fixed broadband.

According to Arani, an expert in informational technology, reduced bandwidth slows access to Instagram, by prolonging the ping time and preventing the page to load as if blocked. Instagram, owned by Meta platforms, formerly called Facebook, has over 47 million users in Iran.

On Monday check-host.net data showed a ping server time of 85.4 milliseconds (ms) for Instagram from IP addresses in Tehran, 16.5 ms from Istanbul, 1.0 ms from Paris, and 54.4 ms from Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

Unlike Instagram, WhatsApp messaging applications is filtered but nearly every Iranian with a smartphone has installed anti-filtering software that allows access to filtered applications and websites. Anti-filtering software, however, will time out if the internet speed is low. Nonetheless, with over 50 million users, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging and social media platform in Iran.

Shargh, the reformist newspaper, said Monday its investigation showed serious disruption in Instagram traffic over two months. According to Shargh, the disruption happened every day after 5:00 pm – which would make Instagram obsolete if continued.

World Speedtest rankings

Iran now ranks 77th, two places behind Israel, six behind Ireland, and two ahead of Ethiopia in the Speedtest Global Index for mobile internet. Fixed broadband speed is 141st, almost at the same level as Benin, the Western Sahara, and Nigeria, while 18 places ahead of Lebanon, which has suffered years of civil war and instability. Afghanistan was last of 179 countries in the list.

Two months ago Iran ranked 70th in mobile internet speed and it has dropped by 7 points. Social media users complain that the speed of mobile internet and fixed broadband has dropped and their access to social media and messaging applications has noticeably diminished in the past few weeks.

Some businesses relying on Instagram now say they fear bankruptcy, with online meetings impossible despite the Covid pandemic. Taxis and cars are getting lost because their GPS devices fail to function. Students who have to study online, with classes and exams disrupted, are frustrated.

Maryam Shokrani, journalist with 23,000 Instagram followers, shared a screenshot on Twitter Monday flashing "Session not found" as an example of how her online activities were curtailed.

"We are kicked out of online sessions all the time, the sound comes and goes, and at the end we don't know what happens in the session,” she wrote. “Now the minister of communications, Isa Zarepour, says those who complain about low speed are making a fuss!"

"The clandestine filtering of Instagram and WhatsApp through gradual reduction of bandwidth is much more unethical than official filtering because it is a sign of deceit, weakness, irresponsibility," Roozbeh Alamdari, editor of Jamaran, a reformist news website, tweeted Monday.