It has been almost 3 black months – since last February 28, when the United States bombed Iran – in which the secrecy of the Islamic regime and the absence of mobile and fixed communication have served to further confuse the international community about what is happening in the Middle East.
An Iranian exiled in Spain, who prefers not to reveal her identity for fear of reprisals, admits that no one can trust the Ayatollah regime, and not now either. And although he is happy to see the Internet return to the country, he doubts that digital censorship will disappear. “Yesterday I spoke with my mother and my sister, but imagine 3 months without knowing anything about the world, they could only watch the news on Iranian television,” he says. And he adds that “they could call with a government application”, but they could not talk about what is happening, just to say that they are fine because “everything was under control.”
The longest national disconnection in modern history
“The Internet is now connected and they can now call outside the country without having to use the Iranian government application,” says this exile in Spain. There have been 2,093 hours of digital blackout, the longest since there are records. In these three long months, the only thing that Iranians have been able to use to communicate abroad is an application that the Tehran government had made available to the population, although the majority have preferred not to use it for fear of selective eavesdropping and possible retaliation for their conversations. And the Iranians feel relief and at the same time distrust.
Even so, the ultraconservative sectors of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran threaten to cut off the Internet again when national security requires it.
