JERUSALEM—Iranians are reaching out to the world through whichever channels they can find. Using anti-censorship software, they are breaking through the blockades in record numbers. Using the phone, they are calling into Farsi-language radio stations in droves.
The Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a U.S.-based company that provides software to break through Internet blockades, reopened “Freegate” to Iranians in the Farsi language on June 13. “Traffic quickly doubled and then re-doubled,” said Shiyu Zhou, a computer scientist and part of the consortium team.
“We had 200 million hits per day in a few short days.”
Iranians are using the Freegate software to cut through blockades and reach sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, news sites, and Farsi-language sites, Zhou said.
“Last weekend the traffic shot through the roof. On Saturday, the number of hits was 390 million—which approximates 1 million users.”
Zhou said they are looking for funding to increase their capacity so the services can be sustained. The consortium was founded initially to combat Internet repression in China, but is now used in many countries around the world and is often touted as the most effective in breaking through censorship efforts.
Iranians have called the consortium saying Freegate is a “lifeline” to them, it is “important” and “we need this service,” said Zhou.
“We get many, many phone calls. We want to help Iran and other countries as much as we can.”
Phoning into Israeli Radio Station
For over 20 years, Iranian citizens have been calling in to Israel’s public radio—the Voice of Israel, or Kol Yisrael. More and more Iranians are phoning in recently, some talking about their difficulties, some talking about the repression, and others are asking Israel and the West to help with bringing down the regime.
“We have had so many phone calls from Iran today,” said Menashe Amir on Tuesday. He has been working with the Farsi department of the Voice of Israel radio station for fifty years, including as its manager.
“One of the listeners began to cry. He said that he remembered my voice for two generations. He cried that the Iranians are going through a sad period, and that they ask the Israelis and the entire world to help and support their uprising.”
Amir said he has served the Iranian nation for the last 50 years. “I try to teach them democracy and freedom of speech. [This uprising] is the Iranians who are fed up with what happens inside this country, and they want to be a normal nation, to have good relations with Western countries, to cooperate with Israel, to respect the Jews for the Holocaust, and never to call for the destruction of Israel. This is the will of the Iranians. There are many Iranians who still remember the period of fruitful cooperation between Israel and Iran, and they want it back.”
Amir estimates the number of his audience to be between 2 and 6 million people.
The Farsi department of Kol Yisrael is broadcasting a daily 85-minute program and a one-hour program during the weekend. The radio is broadcast into Iran through short wave as well as two Internet Web sites and satellite.
Normally, the Farsi department answers calls from Iran only once a week, but since the election results were announced recently, they are answering calls every day.
Amir explains that in the radio station they can recognize which calls came from Iran, and which calls came from outside of Iran. Amir says that the listeners tell about things they have personally seen. “The situation in Iran is so harsh and so tragic,” he says, “they have no reason to lie.”
Amir says that most of the time the callers speak about the harsh times they’ve gone through.
The Iranian regime, in reaction to the riots, has tried to block foreign media outlets from broadcasting into Iran, has expelled foreign journalists, and blocked Web sites. However, listeners still manage to break through the limitations and listen to Amir’s program as well as other Farsi-language radio stations.
