A Deadly Silence on Digital Rights at Iran’s UPR
The international community ignored the issue of digital rights during Iran’s UPR in November. Hundreds were killed a week later under the shadow of an internet shutdown. UPROAR reflects on Iran’s UPR with Small Media’s Kaveh Azarhoosh.
On November 8 2019, Iran underwent its third review at the Universal Periodic Review. In it, only two recommendations were made to Iran to address issues relating to human rights online, despite its long track record of systematically censoring expression and surveilling its citizens online.
Less than a week later, on 14 November, protests broke out in Iran after the announcement of a dramatic hike in petrol prices. Then, on 16 November the government imposed a total internet shutdown, cutting Iran off almost-completely from the outside world.
In the days that followed, at least 304 protestors were killed, and thousands more were detained by security forces, according to a report by Amnesty International.
The internet shutdown allowed the Iranian government to do this without videos and images making their way to the international media, thereby ensuring that citizens’ voices were silenced in the face of brutal state violence.
Digital rights advocates had raised concerns about Iran internet policies during the pre-sessions of Iran’s UPR. UPROAR spoke with Kaveh Azarhoosh, Advocacy and Policy Lead at Small Media, who discussed Iran’s record on digital rights with diplomats in Geneva ahead of the UPR.
Here’s what he had to say about the shutdown, his efforts in Geneva, and the need to put digital rights more firmly on the international community’s human rights agenda.
UPROAR: Hi Kaveh.You participated in the pre-session of the third cycle of Iran UPR. How did you plan for it? What was the most challenging issue for you in speaking about digital rights with state delegates?
Kaveh: Going into the meetings we had a clear set of issues that we wanted to raise. Our strategy was to be strengthened by collaborating with other international advocacy groups, and by adopting the global language of digital rights.
The problem with talking about the Internet in Iran has always been that we are often warning policymakers about a really dark and unexpected future. Often policymakers fail to take our warnings seriously, precisely because we are warning about the scale of human rights abuse that is often difficult to imagine.
I was actually not that familiar with the UPR process myself before the pre-session, but my impression was that many successful conversions end up being about issues that are easy to understand and communicate in only a few minutes.
The problem is that when we talk about digital rights in Iran, we are talking about a complex set of policies and infrastructures. So there were times that I felt that, although we planned to fully brief participants about the depth of the problem, our warnings were either not understood fully, or ignored.
UPROAR: Iran had its review session for the third cycle on 8 November at the UN, where 111 states made their recommendations. Hardly any of them included digital rights in their recommendations.
The focus of recommendations was instead mainly on violence and discrimination against women, juvenile executions, and child marriage, among other issues.
In this context, where there are so many competing challenges, how important is it to include digital rights concerns in states’ recommendations?
Kaveh: I am so incredibly grateful that the issues that you have mentioned are getting the attention that they deserve. In my opinion, this is the result of decades of campaigning by some brilliant advocates.
When we talk about digital rights and safe and secure access to the internet, in reality, we are often advocating for an open society and human rights offline and online. It would be meaningless if we talked about digital rights and the issues you were mentioned were ignored.
But I also think that digital rights and freedom of expression online need to be essential to our understanding of some of the other human rights abuses, as internet shutdowns, surveillance, and censorship often disproportionately affect the most marginalised in society.
That’s why I wished that states also highlighted the effects of Iran’s digital policies on marginalised groups. I cannot hide the fact that we are disappointed that the issue of digital rights was not raised more clearly in recommendations, especially where it intersects with the issues you mentioned.
UPROAR: In your discussions with countries’ delegations, how could you gauge their positions on digital rights? Did you have any particularly effective dialogues around digital rights?
Kaveh: Issues such as privacy or digital transparency in one country can no longer be discussed in isolation — in fact, I think they never could be discussed in isolation. But as we see issues of internet governance and digital rights become more mainstream issues in all societies (even the open and democratic ones), I think countries often try to reflect on their own practices, and connect with commonalities when they are talking about digital rights in other nations. At least this was definitely the case in my discussions.
However, the danger is that by always trying to refer back to one’s own domestic debates, we overlook local nuances. I think that’s a danger when representatives from open societies try and relate to, or understand the seriousness of the digital rights threats that exist in states where there are significant human rights abuses.
To some extent, this was the case for Iran. When we spoke about the localisation of data and promotion of domestic services in Iran, this was not immediately understandable, and not comparable to similar projects taking place in countries where the right to privacy and freedom of expression is being protected.
UPROAR: Only two countries ended up making explicit digital rights-related recommendations to Iran. How can we be better at convincing states to take digital rights more seriously, and include these issues in their recommendations?
Kaveh: I’m really disappointed that the countries that have been vocal globally around online privacy and digital rights issues failed to explicitly submit recommendations on the declining digital rights situation in Iran, or speak about the threat posed by the country’s National Information Network.
Moving forward, we have to keep identifying states that consider themselves global leaders on these issues, and communicate the urgency of the situation in Iran much more clearly to them.
In particular, we need to be more clear about how so many of the threats facing minority rights and freedom of expression in Iran are directly related to declining digital rights and the emerging National Information Network.
UPROAR: One week after their third UPR, Iran ordered a total internet shutdown amidst widespread anti-government protests. In the period that followed, Iran’s security forces killed more than 300 protestors, and arrested thousands.
The unprecedented internet shutdown limited both citizens’, and the global media’s access to information. What will the longer-term effects of this shutdown be on human rights in Iran?
Kaveh: First of all, the tragic events of November shows us that the warnings from the digital rights community were accurate, and we had all seen this coming and we had warned states and companies about Iran’s National Information Network.
In a society like Iran, connectivity to the global community through the internet is a deterrent against some of the worst human rights abuses that we saw this month. It is no coincidence that the worst crackdown on protesters in the last decade took place when the state had the ability to shut citizens off from the global internet for such a long period.
But what is more worrying is that the Internet in Iran may never go back to how it was before the shutdown period. The government has already started pushing more local data hosting, and accelerating their plans to counter anonymity and privacy online. There is also talk of ensuring even greater state readiness for future shutdowns.
I hope that these events serve as a warning to all policymakers, and to those with influence in the international community to take seriously the threat of internet localisation policies to fundamental human rights — in Iran, and around the world.
UPROAR is an initiative of Small Media. For more information about the UPROAR programme, visit www.uproar.fyi.
