Interviews with Nima Rashedan

First of all, from what we call free press or what we call reform movement, if I want to explain more, there was not a single paper which the owner and editors were not serving the Islamic Republic of Iran in the position like minister or vice minister. So, this package was very pro-establishment; but the part of establishment which is rationalizing and starting to criticize establishment with these arguments, that we are galvanizing the establishment, we are galvanizing the system with criticizing that. That was the first point of reform movement.

They say we are very insider. We believe in principles. We do respect Ayatollah Khameini’s heritage. We want this regime to be in power, but we just want to criticize. But those others at the side of the supreme leader – and more conservative and more orthodox, if I may say – they said no: if you open any window, it will cause such a snowball effect and then everything will be gone. By time, I’m seeing that what they predicted is pretty much true. If you let people express their opinion, they’re not going to stop. If they say we criticize the situation of women’s dress code, then they will criticize why Sharia law is in Iran. We don’t want the dress code. We don’t want the women to be like, you know, treated like second-class citizens. Then we want everything to be changed.

So, this was a struggle between a group which tried to have more freedom under the same constitution and a group which was pretty terrified and afraid of any sort of change. As you see, most of the people, you know, again, as I say as vice president, for example, vice president of Iran – the vice president for Mr. Khatami spent something like 200 days in solitary confinement last year. So, they just smashed them and removed them from Iranian politics, using the force and the security forces last year.

So yes, our freedom of press was very limited. My editor used to be a kind of minister, so he wouldn’t allow me to publish the things, which I believed. But I was thinking strategically; okay, this is the only window I can use to communicate with people – let’s limit myself and still, you know, continue and go on with this very narrow flow of information. So, let’s wait for the future and then probably we can write more and more.

But they don’t give press permission to anyone that is not qualified for intelligence, security measures. They review your script before it goes to print house to publish. And there are practically lists of people who are giving interviews on electronic media. Electronic media is 100 percent like the Soviet Union in governmental ownership, so nobody can break this. This was the situation before 2000.

In 2000 we had this phenomenon of satellite TVs, and now I don’t think any other country in the world has so many political satellite TVs like Iran – there are something like 45 to 50 political satellite TV channels that are being aired in Iran.

Nima Rashedan was among the first Iranian cyber-activists. Born in Tehran in 1974, his father was a leftist opponent of the government headed by the Shah, so the family was forced into exile in the United States but returned to Iran after the 1979 revolution.

Upon his return, Rashedan became a member of student organizations and worked as a journalist, becoming one of the first writers to publish articles in Farsi on the Internet. In the late 1990s, after the election of President Khatami, he began writing pro-democracy articles.

In 1998, Rashedan was arrested and served time in prison, including a month in solitary confinement. After his release, Rashedan immigrated to Switzerland. He now lives in the Czech Republic and continues his work as a cyber-journalist and advocate. A frequent focus of his work is the similarity between the methods and objectives of the current Iranian regime and those of the former Soviet Union.