Topic: Censorship of the Internet
Country: Iran
Delegate Name: Brooke Michelson
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Iran position papers GLIMUN 2010 committees
Censorship of the Internet is a relatively new issue that is growing extremely rapidly, mirroring the growth of the Internet itself. Within the last two decades, the Internet has emerged as one of the major forums for communication, and has only grown in popularity since then. With the advent of social networking sites, speech and communication have sometimes yielded irresponsible discussion and sharing ideas with the utmost of ease and to the detriment of social order.
Many nations take care to control the content of the web within their own sovereign borders. The Western community foolishly and needlessly takes issue with this. Nations that carefully control the Internet include, but are not limited to, China, Myanmar, Iran, and Cuba. Examples of these nations’ practices of national sovereign power in this area include Myanmar’s and China’s Internet regulation to achieve social harmony. These occurrences have been claimed controversial and have generated strong and needless opposition in the West. The Geneva Declaration on Internet Freedom and the idea of “Net Neutrality” which claims to support freedom of speech on any platform, the world-wide web being the main focus, and strongly oppose the decisions of nations to censor this platform is an unwarranted attack on the sovereignty of nation-states power, and an attempt by the West to spread their corrupted values on a global scale.
We, The Islamic Republic of Iran, firmly stand by our belief that some form censorship is critical and imperative in maintaining the best interest of our nation. As lies about the workings of the government rapidly circulate over the Internet, the citizens of this nation are put in danger by the inevitable unrest and hostility, all a cause of media enflamed rumors. Censorship is simply necessary to maintain order, peace, and safety for the people, this in and of itself, should the main effort of any government. In addition to the danger posed by hate-filled anti-government sentiment based on falsifications, there is even greater moral danger that lies in an uncensored Internet.
We assert, without any hesitation, that the global Internet has become a portal for immorality. These forms of severe immorality go against our religion of Islam and are harmful towards its teachings of the soul and of god. The Internet is filled with readily accessible pornography, images of violence and destruction, and situations that have been proven dangerous and even fatal for our children. Thus, it is inherently evident that to censor this content is to protect our people from the detrimental dangers that it poses.
