Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech 280
An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nokia and Siemens selling the censoring technology to Iran's government. Do you believe that the public relations damage to these companies can persuade them from selling this kind of technology to other dictatorial regimes?" I don't believe there will *be* any PR Damage, and that makes me a little sad.
Remember South African apartheid? (Score:5, Informative)
Why single out Iran? Are you saying Nokia shouldn't operate in Iran; they should break the law there; what?
I'm guessing a lot of people reading this have the former in mind: information technology companies in the industrialized world shouldn't operate in countries that place restrictions on political speech to the extent seen in the countries on which the United States already has sanctions. In the 1980s, near the end of South Africa's counterpart to the U.S. "Jim Crow" era [wikipedia.org], there was an effort to boycott companies that did business in South Africa: disinvestment [wikipedia.org] was a result.
Business as usual (Score:3, Informative)
The question has to be asked: why does this matter? Iran would still do its own thing.
In this case, they had the product, so why not buy it? That's not such a hard thing to understand. This is like saying "omg Raytheon makes missiles!" which is no surprise to anyone. What about their clients? What about their unofficial clients? Even those aren't a surprise.
Sure, we may not agree with Iran's internet policy, and yes, the vendor may take a portion of the blame in an incident, but I hardly see Iran's isolationism as the fault of any one company.
Seeing as how most of the footage we get out of Iran is from mobile phones and such, is it any surprise that they'd ask a mobile phone maker for help? Business is business, and in this case, it's easy to pin the responsibility on the buying party.
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:1, Informative)
Iran, regardless of all the shortcomings and issues IS a democracy. Most of the other countries in gulf region(Like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) are under family dictatorships and worse tyrannies. And US/EU governments and corporations sell everything including weapons to them. I think this is far worse than selling technology to Iran.
BULLSHIT
The only candidates allowed to run are selected by the true rulers of the country - the mad mullahs.
Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Iran, regardless of all the shortcomings and issues IS a democracy
Who are you kidding? One un-elected guy has godly powers. He can do anything he likes.
Every "election" that happens, candidates are screened for loyalty to that unelected guy and Islam, if found not loyal enough, they are barred. And democracy is not just about elections. What is democracy without freedom of speech? freedom to peacefully protest? etc.
I'm baffled by your idea of what constitutes a democracy. "It sucks less than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so it's a democracy!"
Iran used to be a quasi-democracy, after the recent "election" (read coup) Khamenei gave a big fuck you to people and said we're not even going to bother counting votes anymore.
Re:it's the kind of world we live in ! (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, those pesky bastards in Germany doing business with unfriendly nations, while the glorious Ronald 'Iran-Contra [wikipedia.org]' Reagan did not at all organise weapons shipments to Iran. Not all all. No sir...
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Iran democracy is way better than Iraq(old) one. For e.g even now the candidates who are dead against president Nejad were allowed to contest. And as I said in previous post, other countries like Saudi have NO election at all ! They have even worse filtering of internet. I am typing this from Saudi where even some of google pages are blocked(like language tools). What is the point in selling everything to these countries and bitching against selling something to Iran ?
> "Democracy" isn't the first word to come to my head when describing Iran... the recent events have done nothing to suggest otherwise.
Thats because western media are showing a very biased story of the Iran issues. Were the western reporters and observers able to see any solid evidence of rigging the election ? I doubt. The reason Nejad won the election with such a huge margin is because of his popularity among rural mass. The so called "reformist's" influence is confined to Tehran and surrounding areas only.
technically iran is not dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
well technically Iran is a democracy
with democratic elections
and president elected by people.
obviously there are problems
and problems with ballot counting,
however Florida also had ballots accounting problem...
I do not say Iran is a happy place to live
but it is more open than many think.
do you think manifestations would happen in North Corea ?
do you think people would be able to play WoW or use Twitter in many Burma ?
Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin (Score:1, Informative)
I work at Siemens and I can tell you that they already have the same technology
Re:Surprise surprise, really? (Score:4, Informative)
Same time Queen Elizabeth II is. At least the office of head of state in Iran is up for election, however rigged and preposterous that could be. Also, the "Assembly of Experts", which has elected him, can dismiss him.
Khamenei ran against Mohammad Reza Golpaygani, winning by two-thirds of the votes [wikipedia.org].
Re:So is there any evidence of election rigging ye (Score:5, Informative)
"In 50 Iranian cities [timesonline.co.uk] the number of votes cast in this month presidential election exceeded the number of eligible voters, the state's election watchdog admitted today. "
Take that as you will.
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:3, Informative)
Then how come candidates like Mousavi came to election and won the second place ?
Mousavi was supposed to be the dummy candidate. He also accepts the concept of Supreme Leader, at the very least verbally. Should he have said otherwise he would have been barred too. Seems like you don't know anything about "election" process in Iran. There were initially hundreds of candidates, they were all barred. That is not a free election.
Show me solid evidence like international observers findings for the "coup" in election . Then I would believe you. Because frankly speaking, I have not seen anything other than reports about "protests"
International observers were barred from monitoring election, even candidates own monitors which by law should be present at every stage of voting and counting votes where thrown out of Ministry of Interior. How could they provide evidence if they were not allowed? Same group runs, counts, investigates fraud. If you want an Admission from the guy who says "There are no gays in Iran" then you're not gonna get it. If arrests of hundreds of political activists, 40+ reporters, throwing out all foreign reporters, cutting off internet access, blocking every opposition website and shutting down their newspapers and unleashing armed militia on peaceful protesters are all signs of a vibrant democracy to you then I have no further comment.
Re:Hell NO! They'll Probably Use As A Selling Poin (Score:5, Informative)
"Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality."
Re:Let Their Big Friend in the Sky Help Them (Score:3, Informative)
All of the people you mentioned were also religious.
Also, insane people deserve technology at least as much as anyone else.. and probably need it more.