Barack Obama condemns Iran for creating 'electronic curtain'
by Paul Carste, telegraph.co.ukMarch 20th 2012
Speaking to the Iranian people in a video released to mark Nowruz, the Persian new year, the president announced the issuance of new guidelines “to make it easier for American businesses to provide software and services into Iran that will make it easier for the Iranian people to use the internet”.
“America seeks a dialogue to hear your views and understand your aspirations,” he said. This will be achieved by establishing greater access to the internet for Iranian citizens.
A Gallup poll showed that 81 per cent of Americans favour direct dialogue with Iran rather than military action.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hit back at international critics on Tuesday. In a Nowruz broadcast on state television, he vowed a forceful response to any military strike from either Israel or America. The Ayatollah also responded to growing concerns that Iran is operating a programme to develop nuclear weapons.
“We have said that we do not have atomic weapons and we will not build any. But if there is any attack by the enemies, whether it be the United States or the Zionist regime, we will attack them at the same level as the attack us,” he said.
“Americans are making a grave mistake if they think by making threats they will destroy the Iranian nation,” the Ayatollah said in an address to thousands of people in Mashhad.
He also called on Iran’s citizens to buy Iranian goods to stop “foreign plots” and keep the nation’s economy functioning, as foreign sanctions exacerbate prise rises and inflation of the rial, Iran’s currency.
The US is employing sanctions and deterring foreign banks from dealing with Iranian institutions in order to help counter Iran's ongoing nuclear programme.
The European Union has also issued an embargo on Iranian oil, due to begin in July.
Iran’s nuclear programme has caused grave concern among foreign nations, and Israel in particular sees it as a direct threat.
Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that the programme was on the verge of becoming immune to disruptions caused by military strikes, fuelling suspicion that Israel may conduct such a strike before Iran relocates most of its nuclear facilities underground.
Iran, dubbed an “enemy of the internet” by Reporters Without Borders, vigilantly monitors and censors the internet, which roughly 13 per cent of its population uses. In 2010 the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard created a “cyber army” to police the web, and earlier this year plans for a national internet were announced.
This month the Ayatollah ordered officials to establish a body to monitor and manage the internet, called the Supreme Council of Virtual Space. Sitting on this council would be President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the information and culture ministers and police and Revolutionary Guard chiefs. The council’s remit is to define policy and coordinate decisions concerning the internet.
Original Page: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9155783/Barack-Obama-condemns-Iran-for-creating-electronic-curtain.html
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