Will Iranian Youth Vote for Online Freedoms in Upcoming Elections?

The twelfth presidential election in Iran will be held on May 29, with one of the discussions in defining the foundations of freedom in Iran, which has become a national debate, being internet freedom. While the 2015 nuclear agreement was a reason for the Iranian people's vote, the government's policies regarding censorship and the internet could be a factor in measuring the progressiveness and popularity of a candidate among the eighty million population of Iran, which is managed by specialized youth under 35 years old in the technology sector. The 2009 election was the first serious attempt by the government to control the internet domain. Weeks before the voting, the Iranian government became aware of the reformist movement or the Green Movement on social media and took steps to limit the space by censoring Facebook and Twitter. A political and protest movement flared up with the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and millions of Iranians believe that Ahmadinejad's victory was a fraudulent one. The protest movement against the election caused concern for the government, which temporarily cut off the country's internet. They resorted to censorship and internet control through cybercrime laws, regulations that were quickly passed after the 2009 protests to criminalize behaviors deemed inappropriate by the Iranian government in the online space. The Supreme Council of Cyberspace was established in 2012 to ensure that online policies are under the direct supervision of Iran's hardline leader. In the 2013 presidential election, candidates campaigned over the issue of expanding access and innovation in the online space. However, the Iranian government continued to try to prevent political mobilization among people in cyberspace by throttling internet speed in the days leading up to the election. The election of moderate Hassan Rouhani was a relief for many who had been frustrated by multiple barriers to accessing the online space. In a campaign a week before June 14, 2013, Hassan Rouhani told his supporters, "We live in a world where limiting information is impossible. Young people are faced with an information bombardment, and we must be ready to cope with it." Internet policy was founded on better access, and one of his most important promises was to increase internet speed to improve the country's economic conditions. However, he made no promises to reduce regime censorship that prevented Iranians from accessing Twitter and Facebook. To fulfill his electoral promises, Rouhani's government published a Citizens' Rights Charter in December 2016, although it was unclear on what legal basis this charter was written, but several articles of this charter addressed the online rights of the Iranian people: Article 26: The government must guarantee freedom of expression and opinion based on the law, especially in the media, cyberspace, newspapers, magazines, books, cinema, radio, television, and social networks. Article 33: Citizens have the right to freely and without discrimination access, communicate, and obtain information and knowledge in cyberspace. Article 35: Citizens have the right to security in cyberspace, the security of communication and information technologies, and the protection of their personal information and privacy. Despite these statements, there was no mention in the guarantee of this charter of the arrests, censorship, and other forms of online repression that occurred during Rouhani's administration. Neither the conservative judiciary nor the Revolutionary Guards showed any signs of respecting these rights in their decisions, especially in cases like the death sentence issued for Sina Dehghan for posts outside the realm of morality on social media or the arrest of managers of several reformist Telegram channels and supporters of Rouhani in the months leading up to the elections. There is also a thin line between innovation and control in shaping the government's internet policies. With promises regarding the localization of platforms in Iran, policies are directed towards replacing more internet services and servers in Iran, considering the avoidance of foreign competition that fuels fears of surveillance. Multiple efforts to pressure localization included ultimatum to foreign messaging services, including Telegram, to replace their servers inside Iran, providing an incentive for local developers to design a platform to replace foreign requests. These efforts raised concerns regarding the government's neglect of citizens' rights in Iran, which contradicts laws protecting people's privacy. All these laws exist in the country's constitution, the Islamic Penal Code, and cybercrime laws. The government has used significant user data for repression, for example, the arrest of reformist journalist Eisa Saharkhiz, which was carried out using information available in mobile phone messages monitored by Nokia-Siemens technology. Additionally, Nosratollah Khosrowi Roudsari was also arrested based on the Iranian government's collective surveillance of citizens' SMS data. Contrary to this, many Iranians consider Rouhani's government credible for maintaining platforms like Telegram, Instagram, and WhatsApp and not filtering these networks. It is said that Rouhani told his opponents in his first electoral debate on April 27 that if it weren't for his government, access to the internet in Iran would be so limited that even his opponents would not be able to use it for their campaigns. However, the hardline Revolutionary Guards and judiciary have noted that the use of Telegram helped reformist and moderate forces achieve their victories, particularly in the 2016 parliamentary elections. At the end of March, a series of arrests of Telegram managers and journalists supporting Rouhani by the Revolutionary Guards were justified on the grounds of national security. Despite preventing the filtering committee or the committee of criminal content from restricting these platforms, Rouhani's government was unable to prevent the hardline judiciary from blocking encrypted voice calls on Telegram on April 14 and also live broadcasts on Instagram, which were justified under the pretext of national security in the days leading up to the election. Rouhani's conservative successor in the upcoming elections, Ebrahim Raisi, has been mocked for his lack of knowledge about technology issues and his efforts to control the online space. Regardless of the direction this election takes, the project of controlling cyberspace in the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue.