Sadegh Pashm-Foroush
The government of Masoud Pezeshkian, who branded himself as a moderate, has fast-tracked a draconian new bill aimed at crushing the free flow of information online. The bill, ironically titled “Countering the Spread of False Content in Cyberspace,” was rushed to the regime’s Majlis (parliament) and approved with “double urgency” on July 27.
This legislation is not a good-faith effort to combat misinformation. It is a desperate act by a clerical regime besieged by social, economic, and political crises, and terrified of a populace that uses the internet to expose its corruption and organize dissent. This bill is a panicked confession that the regime sees the truth as its greatest enemy.
A regime fractures under the weight of its own repression
The bill has triggered such profound fear of a public backlash that it has caused unprecedented infighting within the regime’s own ranks. In a stunning display of disarray, 19 members of the same parliament that fast-tracked the bill wrote a letter to Pezeshkian demanding he “withdraw the bill as soon as possible.” They warned that “censorship and restriction are not tools of explanation, nor do they guarantee security,” calling the bill a “strategic error” that will only intensify public distrust.
The alarm bells are ringing across the political spectrum. Abbas Akhoundi, a former minister, warned Pezeshkian not to let the “bonds between you and society be broken one after another.” A Communications Ministry advisor bluntly called the bill a “threat to the security of the system.” Even the state-run newspaper Etemad pleaded, “Withdraw this bill; do not burden the system with its cost.” This internal panic exposes a ruling class terrified of the consequences of its own oppressive measures The true target: The PMOI and the voice of a rebellious youth
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