Iran Cracks Down On Satellite Dishes

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty ^ | August 14, 2006

[HAL9000]

August 14, 2006 -- Reports from Iran say authorities are continuing their crackdown on Western television channels, raiding rooftops in search of banned satellite dishes.

Iran's media today quoted Tehran police chief Morteza Talai as reminding residents that the use of satellite dishes is prohibited by law.

Eyewitnesses say police have been raiding apartment blocks in Tehran's northern and western neighborhoods in the past few days, looking for prohibited dishes.

AFP quoted a Tehran resident as saying security forces seized scores of satellite television equipment on August 13 in Velenjak district.

The Iranian parliament in 1995 passed a law outlawing satellite dishes in a bid to rid the country of Western influences and prevent foreign-based opposition groups from broadcasting into the country.

But the ban was not strictly implemented up until last year, when President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as Iran's new president.

[cripplecreek]

After we freed Afghanistan the people started making satellite dishes.

[Right Wing Assault]

Why don't these Muslims just make everyone blind and deaf at birth. Also cut their feet and hands and genitals off. Then they will find it harder to succumb to temptation. What an ideal religion!

[Per-Ling]

This is not new. This has been happening everyday in Iran for years. The IRGC/Basij forces confiscate these dishes, then sell them back for a profit to black market dealers, and the dishes eventually find their way back on roofs. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[JohnLongIsland]

they do.

[shield]

Well, many of Iranians were already upset...now this...NOT SURPRISING...and that creepo evil prez thinks he can lecture us through that shameful interview loon wallace did...

[BigBobber]

Mikey Wallace forgot to ask El Presidente why he bans satellite dishes.

[shield]

Wallace couldn't get that slime ball to answer the questions he ask...

[John Carey]

Ailing Castro's Cuba signals
Crackdown on pirate TV

By Anthony Boadle
August 9, 2006

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's communist government has signaled a crackdown on black-market satellite dishes used by citizens to get news and views from its arch enemy, the United States, nine days after ailing leader Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma warned that the dishes, which many Cubans use to watch Spanish-language TV programs from the exile bastion of Miami, could be used by the U.S. government to broadcast subversive information.

"They are fertile ground for those who want to carry out the Bush administration's plan to destroy the Cuban revolution," said the newspaper, the official voice of the government. Similar articles in Granma usually signal that action can be expected.

The article decried an "avalanche" of capitalist advertising in the commercial programs.
Since Castro provisionally relinquished power to his brother Raul on July 31 after undergoing stomach surgery, Cubans have been anxious for information.

U.S.-funded TV and Radio Marti, run out of Miami, have pumped up their output of anti-Castro programming, but few Cubans are believed to have access to the stations because of successful jamming by the Cuban government.

By contrast, there may be as many as 10,000 illegal TV satellite dishes in Cuba, each one linked to perhaps hundreds of televisions by cables that their owners snake over rooftops and between buildings, charging other users $10 a month.


Many who get black-market U.S. television watched with astonishment as exiles in Miami danced in the streets when they heard on July 31 that Fidel Castro had undergone surgery and handed over power to his brother.


Castro's Cuba is widely viewed in Miami as an authoritarian prison where dissent and economic freedom are brutally quashed. Castro's supporters view him as a champion of social justice and national pride for standing up to the United States for more than four decades.

---

Sound Familiar????

Freedom of Speech:
Attempts to Kill Freedom of Speech
Ultimately Doomed to Failure

By John E. Carey

China and Vietnam are among the nations that restrict the internet and email to "approved" topics, words and discussion. People in both countries always assume, and usually correctly, that "Big Brother" is watching.

India, in an effort to stop the communications of subversives following terror bombings in July 2006, also took steps to implement internet and email restrictions.

Is India going the way of China and Vietnam? What is becoming of the Great Indian Democracy?

When India announced even temporary restrictions in internet blogs, the Indian Government took a stand against Freedom of Speech. So the story is about one of the rights we Americans hold dear, and sometimes take for granted.

Internet sites and computers pose a two edged sword, Communist nations have found. If a government fosters internet communications widely people will communicate. Before long, if you aren't careful, people will think and communicate at the same time.

In Vietnam, starting in the 2006-2007 school year, all high schools must provide accredited and extensive IT education to all students. Each high school must also be equipped with a computer center with at least 25 computers connected to the Internet. These reforms are dictated by the Communist Party's Ministry of Education and Training.

But the Vietnamese leaders, like the Communists in China, want to control the internet, monitor usage by individuals , and limit access to many western sites. Prohibited search words include "democracy," "freedom," and "declaration of independence." Many sites Americans take for granted are prohibited in Vietnam and China: like my own Washington Times (most articles much of the time).

Email is monitored in both China and Vietnam. Users caught writing "subversive" material or communicating too much with western friends find the police at the door.

It seems a pretty good rule of thumb that where information and access to information is limited and controlled by the government: the government is almost always up to something bad. We'll call this the "Peace and Freedom Freedom of Speech Rule of Thumb."

Vietnam and China are perfect examples of our Freedom of Speech Rule of Thumb: no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no opposition party or independent government sector, no writs of habeas corpus, no search warrants authorized by an independent judiciary, no "Miranda rights," and no probable cause. Add a tireless attempt to limit and control what the people can know and you have yourself a witches brew rife with human rights violations.

It is a very sad commentary that India feels that it is appropriate and useful to limit "blogs," no matter what their content.

It is an even sadder commentary that U.S. companies including Google and Microsoft, eager to get into the huge Asian market including more than 123 Million Chinese users, acquiesced to the Chinese restrictions on internet and email use that the Chinese demanded.

I know these corporations have an obligation to their shareholders. I know the Chinese market is too big to totally cede to others. I know the arguments...but....

If we Americans are so eager for cash that we easily cast aside our most basic freedoms, the freedoms our forefathers fought to maintain during many wars, maybe we need to rethink our principles.

Just google "Google" and "Microsoft" and check their quarterly profits: they are staggering. And both these companies and their leaders, especially Bill Gates, are justifiably proud of all the good they do in the world. But in the case of freedom of speech in Asia, and now apparently India, both corporations and their leaders have failed to take a stand that protects the rights of their fellow men.

We are pleased to join Amnesty International in speaking out for Freedom of Speech.

Stifling freedom of speech will almost always fail. Men of principle cannot be silenced. They only keep quiet while the evil ones are watching. Or they seem to.

And in the year 2006, those stifled find a way to blog, text message and all the rest. And that's a good thing.

http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

---

[Bringbackthedraft]

Radios next, then recorders, stereos, microwaves, dishwashers, washing machines, toasters etc etc.. until the goal of reaching the 6th century is met.

[JustTheTruth]

I suppose it would have been too much to expect for Mike Wallace-the-Appeaser to ask Iran's crazy and evil President serious questions about gross restrictions on freedom, including freedom of the press and of the people to have a real ability to choose from among candidates for political office?

[Bringbackthedraft]

Iran is not a country run by the people, its a country run by the mullahs. If we had religious fanatics running our country we'd have the same conditions plus witch trials and inquisitions.

[Freedom4US]

You can bet radios have been restricted for a long time. Radio receivers are just as vulnerable to direction finding equipment as transmitters. Sidenote: During the war (the world war II) Iran was so poor they stole copper telephone wire almost as fast as it could be strung up by the Americans, and the water supply was the gutter in most cities. Black market items from consumer goods to typewriters were extemely expensive.

[Mike Darancette]

Instead of one large "Iron Curtain" new little "Iron Curtains" are coming into existence every day.

[Joan Kerrey]

Why don't these Muslims just make everyone blind and deaf at birth. Also cut their feet and hands and genitals off. Then they will find it harder to succumb to temptation. What an ideal religion!

Don't forget cutting off the tongue. No one should be allowed to speak either for they might spread evil ideas not approved by the state.

[The Iceman Cometh]

plan to destroy the Cuban revolution

A 47 year revolution. Not real good at moving on are they?

[AFreeBird]

Mikey Wallace forgot to ask El Presidente why he bans satellite dishes.

He's a cable guy. Actually he's so old he's still over the air brodcast. So dissin the dishes ain't no thang.

[Normal4me]

You can't place rocket launchers on a roof with all that TV junk in the way! ;-)

[Philistone]

Though with the August 22nd deadline coming up, this may be more ominous.

Doesn't want any one in Iran to know that it was Iran who launched the first salvo...

[John Carey]

I am amazed that CNN is giving Castro so much TV mention while he is in the hospital making NO NEWS!