Internet Cost Rises In Iran, Limiting People’s Access To Information
The cost of internet subscription in Iran has gone up by up to 60 percent, limiting access to information and potentially harming million of online businesses..
The cost of internet subscription in Iran has gone up by up to 60 percent, limiting access to information and potentially harming million of online businesses..
Internet providers recently increased the cost of their services by between 60 to 100 percent. According to Tehran Municipality's Hamshahri newspaper, only days after the hike in the price of broadband, mobile operators scrapped all six and 12-month subscription packages and have only more expensive 90-day packages on offer now.
The subscription cost increase comes at a time when inflation is around 40 percent and food prices have risen by more than 60 percent in one year. The budget of fixed-income Iranians is stretched thin and many have cut down even on food purchases.
Last summer during his election campaign, President Ebrahim Raisi said his government would make broadband free to lower income families but so far has not delivered on the promise. His telecommunications minister, Eisa Zarepour, on March 22 promised adjustments to the cost of broadband would be done with consideration so that it would not add pressure to the other pressures people were under due to the high inflation.
Many also complain that despite higher costs, the speed of broadband has also gone down. Zarepour on Monday admitted that broadband speed in Iran is low due to lack of infrastructure development in the past few years. Iran ranks between 140 to 150 in broadband speed and 70 to 80 in mobile internet speed globally, he said.
Most Iranians use mobile internet rather than broadband. According to the latest figures published by the government, there are 10.6 million broadband and 84.1 million mobile internet subscribers.
Around 1.7 million small businesses, employing 7-8 million people, rely on online commerce, which can decline if internet subscriptions or usage decline.
Some Iranian media, such as conservative Entekhab, have alleged that the hike in the cost of access to the internet may be an attempt to reduce people's access to the internet. Entekhab called the hike the "silent implementation" of Siyanat (Protection) bill. The controversial bill, ironically titled Legislation to Protect Cyberspace Users’ Rights, critics say, is meant to enforce restrictions on the internet and foreign social media platforms.
If passed, the legislation currently under review would require foreign and domestic social-media networks and messaging applications to register with a regulatory and supervisory body that would include representatives of intelligence organizations. The ministry of communications and information technology would be charged with blocking any social networks or messaging applications that failed to gain approval.
Hardliners are adamant the bill should pass the parliament. Ahmad Alamolhoda, a senior firebrand cleric who is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in Khorasan-e Razavi Province, on April 8 strongly criticized the parliament for delaying the approval of the controversial bill. "The enemy is at our throat [on social media] and you constantly dilly-dally. What are you waiting for?" he said in his Friday prayer sermon.
Some of the bill’s supporters argue Iran should emulate China's in creating a national intranet. "The Chinese have unique and innovative experience in this field, which we can put to use," lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah said January 18. China uses its ‘Great Firewall,’ a fortified digital border, to manage access to information entering and exiting the country through the Internet.
Iran has been heavily restricting access to the Internet for the past 20 years. Many foreign and Iranian websites, including media websites, are already blocked in Iran although controls are readily sidestepped by VPNs (virtual private networks) and anti-filtering software. While Instagram is the only major social-media platform not blocked in Iran, millions of Iranians use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp.
According To Jahan-e Sanaat newspaper in Tehran, disagreements between parliament (Majles) and President Ebrahim Raisi are mainly in four areas: A controversial petrochemical plant, a bill to restrict internet access, discontinuing cheap dollars for essential imports and the motions planned by a sizeable group of lawmakers to unseat Raisi's economic ministers.
The petrochemical plant, that is still being built despite strong opposition by Raisi and his Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, is a project that has faced strong opposition by locals and environmentalists. The location in northern Iran by the Caspian Sea is near a natural reserve which is ecologically vulnerable, and the area is too densely populated for a project whose first outcome for the region will be pollution.
Widespread opposition to the project has reached a sensitive point as media has revealed that the man behind the project is allegedly a corrupt individual who has borrowed money from state banks under two different identities and has refused to pay back a $50-million loan after many years.
The only top official who has supported the project in public is Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who is now quietly at loggerheads with Raisi over the issue.
The second area of disagreement is a bill to restrict internet access which particularly targets foreign social media platforms. The bill is ironically called "The Protection Bill" as its advocates claim that is meant to protect users from the perils of social media.
Raisi opposes the bill mainly because he knows that there are 1.7 million small businesses active on Instagram that provide jobs to around nine million Iranians. Banning access to social media will add those nine million to millions of other hungry bellies Raisi has to feed.
Some have said that Raisi also knows the country still lacks the infrastructure to replace the Internet with a local intranet network. So, he fears that the state’s administrative, financial and health systems as well as many public services might collapse and create even more problems for a government that already faces a host of hard issues.
The third disagreement between the Majles and the administration is the preferential rate of 42,000 rials per US dollar allocated for importing essential food and medicine. Lawmakers, who have come on board claiming to be revolutionaries, believe this is the only area they can have an impact by cutting a major source of potential corruption by individuals who have misused the cheap dollars to make profits in businesses that have nothing to do with essential imports.
Here too, Raisi knows that cutting off the subsidy will further increase the cost of living and will land his administration in trouble by creating the risk of street protests.
Finally, is the motion planned by over 50 of parliament's lawmakers to impeach Raisi's economic ministers including Industry Minister Reza Fatemi Amin and Labor Minister Hojjat Abdolmaleki who are believed to be his most vulnerable aides. Political circles in Tehran seem to be quite certain that the industry minister will be leaving the administration during the coming weeks.
These are only the main outstanding problems between the Majles and Raisi. Other problems such as the claim by some lawmakers that the administration has kept them in the dark about the nuclear negotiations also make matters worse, if lawmakers conclude that Raisi is in a weak position.
Until last week, Iranian media with very few exceptions across the country's political spectrum echoed the party line about developments in Ukraine, in a probably concerted way based on orders from the Culture Ministry and the Supreme Council of National Security.
This policy highlighted Russian “victories”, promoted Moscow’s propaganda about NATO’s role in the conflict and omitted the word “invasion”.
Over the weekend, two interviews, one with Ukraine's ambassador in Tehran in Asia newspaper, and an interview with a member of Ukrainian Parliament in Etemad Online supported the Ukraine in the conflict while other media outlets, particularly Khamenei-controlled state television continued the usual official rhetoric about Russia trying to purge Ukraine of Nazis and preventing the expansion of NATO.
The state television's coverage of Ukrainian developments has been most annoying for viewers as it constantly portrayed the war as Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians, while the viewers have access to international TV stations which reflect the truth in a variety of different shades.
In the interview with Asia, Ukraine's ambassador to Tehran Serhii Burdyliak said that Iran has not helped Ukraine in any way while nearly the rest of the world including Central Asian states have sent financial aid. Some Iranians on social media criticized the ambassador for the remark and lashed out at Ukraine for never saying anything about US sanctions on Iran.
The ambassador further attacked the Iranian government over its stance on the Russian invasion and challenged it to send oil to Ukraine. Both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi expressed support for Moscow at the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, reformist Etemad Online quoted a Ukrainian lawmaker as having said that Ukraine will inevitably win the war. The lawmaker added: "We believe that the situation will improve if the Iranian government supports Ukraine and changes its rhetoric about the war in Ukraine."
The lawmaker, identified only as “Andrey”, said he did not know whether any Iranians are fighting on the Ukrainian side, while adding "it was quite possible." He probably was countering rumors about Iranians helping Russia in the war against Ukraine.
The Iran Diplomacy website which is close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry observed in an analysis published on April 16 that opposing views in Iran regarding the war in Ukraine are divided in a diagonally opposite way.
"Although there are opposing views on the matter, it seems that part of the Iranian society which supports Russia in this conflict is a minority," the Iran Diplomacy maintained. The website added that Iranians have traditionally maintained opposing views on developments involving Russia for complicated historic reasons, but the differences between various attitudes about Russia during the current conflict has created a sharper bipolar environment in Iran, which is evident in media reports.
The bipolar situation in the media appears to have spread to Iranian society in general, the article argued. One group supports the idea of Russia being a reliable partner for Iran and another group whose characteristic is a profound distrust of Russia which is rooted in Iran's modern history.
The article further argued that some Iranians seriously believe that alliance with Russia under the Islamic Republic has prevented Iran's development while also keeping it apart from western countries.