BEHIND THE IRAN HEADLINES Series, August 22, 2023, Alireza Jafarzadeh, NCRI-US Deputy Director
Did you know that the Iran regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the repressive #IRGC actually run a mafia to make huge profits out of their censorship of their own citizens? Alireza Jafarzadeh describes how they do it.
Transcript of Mr. Jafarzadeh’s talk
Iran’s regime has found a way to turn massive internet censorship into suppression of the anti-regime widespread protests and a profitable business it’s not just a control mechanism by the thriving Revenue stream with state reports indicating that citizens pay steep prices for limited internet access internet users are often forced to buy data packages twice a week due to stringent restrictions and the average cost of a VPN essential for bypassing these restrictions is relatively high in Iran globally Iran ranks third in internal disruption and limited access fairly only Myanmar and China respectively despite the government’s intense filtering approximately 17 million Iranians access social media daily in response around 48 million users turn to vpns the irony here is that the regime also controls the VPN Market caching on the very tools that citizens use to evade their censorship in a world increasingly connected online this exploitation of internet access offers a start reminder of how oppressive regimes can even monetize the virtual world in this case they run a regime the regime’s key officials have referred to these VPN providers as a mafia entities close to the irdc and other organizations such as Japan which is a foundation under the direct supervision of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei who even hand-picks his president are all involved in this business and the substantial profits they make aren’t really a funnel back into the national expression the Iranian people facing high prices economic Despair and heavy oppression all identify a common adversary the ruling regime the ruling theocracy the repressive molars in Tehran so the Iranian people quest for regime change continues to grow and its trajectory is the eventual overthrow of the religious dictatorship