Diary entries of Hanieh in Tehran. Wednesday, 21 July: "Today the internet was not working at all and the Farsi language satellite channels were all blocked. SMS hasn't been working since before the election. The mobile phones are constantly cut off as well. Even if you manage to connect to the internet with a great deal of difficulty, all the sites have been filtered and you get the 'access denied' message. Last night Voice of America radio introduced a number of sites which you could connect through and some proxy programmes. This morning they are all blocked. Evidently those in charge had stayed up all night making sure we couldn't access anything." Saturday, 20 July: "I looked at the Ghalamnews site in the morning and was surprised to see it wasn’t filtered. There were pictures from Thursday’s protest and a few other pieces of news but nothing about today’s march. Karubi has issued an interesting statement yesterday that I had heard about from VOA in the morning. I searched through the usual websites to see whether it was true or not as it seemed too strong. I finally found it and it was indeed very interesting."
The Telegraph, 21 June 2009.
At least before the election, VOA Persian television was more popular than VOA Persian radio or Radio Farda. But now, with satellite television and the internet blocked, note that she is not complaining about interference to VOA radio. This might have to do with shortwave's resistance to interdiction, as explained in this previous post. And, so, has VOA been publicizing its shortwave frequencies as well as its proxy sites? Schedule and transmission information tends to be difficult to find on VOA websites. Can VOA add shortwave frequencies for Iran, or have too many shortwave transmitting sites been closed?
"The news from CNN, Al Jazeera and the BBC's Persian service is out. Most people can't get on the Net." Anonymous in Tehran,
Washington Post, 20 June 2009.
"A return to cold-war attitudes to broadcasting? Potential risk: The satellite operators may come under pressure to drop news channels if the interference affects other commercial communications operations too widely. Which would be victory for jamming." Richard Sambrook,
Sacred Facts blog, 14 June 2009.
Pressure on satellite operators has, over the years, been more common than jamming in making unwanted content go away.
Update: "To black out a newscast, Iranian authorities beam their own signal up to the commercial satellite carrying the foreign program. The beam is on the same frequency as the newscast, only at much higher power. As a result, anyone in Iran trying to receive the newscast on their home satellite dish receives only the meaningless, substitute signal instead. Similarly, the government is blacking out foreign news programming in Persian on shortwave and medium-wave radio, particularly within major population centers. Here, authorities set up a local high-power transmitter to again overwhelm the newscast with a stronger signal on the same frequency. ... Iran has periodically blocked U.S. broadcasting at critical moments -- including the student demonstrations of 1999 and the last presidential election in 2005 -- but never with such a sustained effort as now." Charles Recknagel,
RFE/RL, 23 June 2009.
"'Despite accusations about foreign media, our broadcasters are simply reporting the news, increasingly by drawing upon the eye-witness accounts of Iranians themselves,' said D. Jeffrey Hirschberg of the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees both VOA and RFE/RL. 'This Iranian interference with our television and radio signals is against international agreements and, most importantly, an injustice to the Iranian people.'"
BBG press release, 22 June 2009.
