

And also the group that I now run, Jigsaw, was started 12 years ago with kind of free expression and ending repressive censorship as one of our goals. I’m both Iranian and was born in Iran, and have family there. Can you perhaps give us the lay of the land in terms of how the regime’s using internet shutdowns as part of its bid to quell protest?Ī bit of my origin story because it’s relevant to this. You lead off with the situation in Iran and what we’re seeing there. Yasmin, you’ve just published a piece in Wired Magazine on the subject and Kian just put out the 12th Internet Freedom Report from Freedom House, which delves into this topic as well.

I’m very pleased to have both of you here today to talk about internet shutdowns. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion. Kian Vesteinsson, Senior Research Analyst for Technology and Democracy at Freedom House and one of the authors of the 12th annual Internet Freedom Report.Yasmin Green, CEO of Jigsaw and author of a recent piece in Wired on Iran’s internet blackouts.To talk more about how these tactics are being applied in Iran and around the world, and what policymakers in democratic countries can do to help dissidents on the ground, I spoke to two experts on digital and human rights: One way the regime has responded to these antigovernment protests is to block access to the internet, independent news sites and social media and communication platforms. According to the BBC, to date at least 348 Iranian protesters have been killed and nearly 16,000 arrested in women-led protests that erupted three months ago after the death Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in custody after being detained by morality police for allegedly breaking the strict rules on the wearing of hijabs.
