Washington has a duty to assist Iranian protesters in staying digitally connected

This month’s protests in Iran over unpaid wages, inflation, government corruption and Tehran’s overseas military activities have unfolded before our eyes thanks in large part to social media platforms. While the Iranian regime has begun to restrict access to these online tools, Washington must work to keep the protestors digitally connected to facilitate their communication and to allow the world community to observe events as they unfold. 

The geographically dispersed protests — taking place in Mashhad, Kermanshah, Rasht, Ahvaz, Qazvin and Isfahan, among dozens of other cities, many of them poor and rural — advanced quickly and began as grievances over economic issues. However, as word spread, the ire of the protestors began to target the regime itself, calling for the removal of President Hassan Rouhani, Quds Force Commander Major General Qasem Soleimani and even Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei.  

According to latest reports, thus far 21 people have been killed and hundreds of protestors have been detained. 

{mosads}All this while Iran has been ascendant in recent years. Much to the detriment of the U.S., its Sunni Gulf allies and Israel, Tehran has had a series of successes in the greater Middle East. It has successfully kept Bashar Assad in power in Syria, enabled Hezbollah’s political dominance in Lebanon, fomented unrest in Bahrain, contributed to the defeat of ISIS in Iraq through Tehran-backed paramilitary groups (who still remain on Iraqi soil) and armed to much effect Shia Houthi rebels in the Yemeni civil war where the conflict remains at a stalemate.

Beyond this, Iran’s nuclear program remains intact and its coffers have been replenished through various sanctions relief as part of the 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers — the U.S., United Kingdom, Russia, France, China and Germany. 

Yet, the rapid unfolding of the recent protests in Iran and their astonishing displays of despair with the regime’s system have surprised many and caught the regime flatfooted. 

This series of events has been facilitated by the communication tools provided by many of the same social media apps we use here in the U.S., i.e., Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter, among others. 

As a response, Iranian authorities have slowed the speed of internet access as well as partially blocked access to Instagram and Telegram. 

For his part, President Trump did the right thing by taking to Twitter and standing in solidarity with the protestors. His Reaganesque description of the Iranian regime’s evil nature was a welcome change from the Obama administration’s muted response to the 2009 Green Protest Movement in which Iranian citizens took to the streets to challenge what they believed was a fraudulent presidential election thrown to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over main opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi. 

While difficult to encapsulate in a presidential tweet, the malicious nature of Iran’s regime leadership over decades bears stating: ​its 

worldwide sponsorship of terror; its state policy of destroying Israel and denying the Holocaust; ​murders of​ U.S. citizens and personnel in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan; and its ​decades-long efforts to destabilize the governments of U.S.-allied Sunni Gulf States. 

Trump’s welcome tweets, however, must be followed by measures to counter the regime’s efforts to stifle the protestors’ momentum and their ability to organize as well as disseminate information and visuals. 

Washington needs to provide the technical tools, training and know how to help the protestors evade the surveillance and censorship of the regime and its partners. It is likely that Tehran is receiving support and coaching from some of the world’s best in online control and suppression, i.e., Beijing and Moscow, two of its closest geopolitical partners.

Without question, there are many other concrete steps that can be taken against Tehran during this important time such as the imposition of additional sanctions on human rights violators in Iran such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; working through the United Nations Security Council and Human Rights Council to galvanize the international community against crackdowns of the protests; pressuring the European Union and Tehran’s other economic partners to scale back commercial activity with regime elements; identifying future leaders in Iran and providing them with the support they need; re-implementing sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and other entities that disperse funds to Tehran’s proxies; and freezing the regime’s assets in its many forms.

Yet, during this critical stage, it is vital that the United States help the protestors continue to access the online world as well as counter the authorities’ attempts to block overseas TV and radio broadcasts, such as Voice of America, Radio Farda and the Marjan Television Network’s Persian-language Manoto TV. Keeping open these lines of communication will allow the protestors to document and tell their story as well as allow for communication with the outside world. 

President Trump’s Dec. 29 Tweet stating “the world is watching” was prescient and right on. Now, Washington must ensure that the protestors have continued access to