'For Khamenei, all bloggers, human rights activists, artists, writers, journalists and students, even some clerics - are unpaid Western soldiers'

The Iranian regime annually spends billions of dollars to jam TV and radio transmissions, filter the internet, censor all Western cultural products, listen in on phone conversations, and interrogate artists, writers and university professors who travel to the West for cultural festivals or conferences.
Khamenei cannot govern in an Iran opened to the world. He prefers to govern a large prison-like Iran in which Iranians are disconnected from the world outside.

Putting cracks in the wall of this prison -- opening Iran to the world -- would be a great help to the democratic movement in Iran.

The major internet companies in the West could work with activists to find ways to bypass Iran's internet censors.
Companies that provide Iran with the technology of surveillance and suppression should be named and shamed; consumers should shy away from these companies' products, and governments should urge these companies to reconsider their practices.

Iran should not be able to use modern technology for fundamentalist and totalitarian purposes.
t is outrageous that Iranian state television is allowed to transmit on the EUTELSAT Hotbird satellites (run by France) when Iranian jamming of Hotbird satellites has been so powerful that other customers demanded that EUTELSAT kick the BBC and VOA off the satellites -- which to its shame EUTELSAT did -- before later adding these services back.

Iran's violation of its international commitments about not interfering with satellite transmissions should be vigorously pursued at the International Telecommunications Union. As a customer through its role with the VOA, the U.S. government should demand EUTELSAT throw Iranian state television off Hotbird, not VOA. New measures and mechanisms are needed to stop Iran from breaking international law.

Furthermore, because Iran's leaders are afraid of any contact between Iranians and the world outside, the international community, including European countries and the United States, should facilitate the visa process for ordinary Iranian citizens so that they can readily travel abroad. Direct contact between Iranians and the rest of the world is an important tool for dismantling the regime's propaganda against Western liberal democratic values, and is a major antidote to reactionary anti-Americanism and anti-Western sentiments.

And finally the United States should make a distinction between human rights issues and democracy. The Iranian people need the international community's support on human rights.

Many officials who are involved in human rights abuses are affiliated with the IRGC and close to the team that runs the nuclear program.

For instance, General Mohammad Reza Naqdi is the commander of the Basij militia and also on the UN blacklist. Twelve years ago, he was convicted in a Tehran court to three months prison for his involvement in torture of prisoners.

He was also involved in crackdowns on students during the student movement a decade ago. Human rights are abused mostly by IRGC and security officers involved in the nuclear program.

Therefore, supporting human rights in Iran and pressuring its violators is not only a moral cause, but should be a strategic long-term policy for the United States. The Iranian people, under a democratic government, can be a reliable partner for building regional peace in the Middle East and an example for other Islamic countries in their path toward democracy.

Adapted from:

America and the Iranian Political Reform Movement: First, Do No Harm