Sen Rubio Asks For Inquiry On Chinese Surveillance Firm Supplying Iran
US Republican Senator Marco Rubio has asked the White House to look into reports that a Chinese firm is supplying Iran with technology that can be used against protesters.
US Republican Senator Marco Rubio has asked the White House to look into reports that a Chinese firm is supplying Iran with technology that can be used against protesters.
NBC news has reported that Tiandy, which is providing facial recognition technology to the Chinese authorities is also equipping the Iranian government with surveillance technology.
Sen, Rubio sent a letter to the Biden administration November 30, obtained by NBC, that the company’s dealings with Iran “raise serious questions about whether Tiandy’s products are being used against peaceful Iranian protesters.”
Human rights organizations say that Iran has killed more than 450 protesters since mid-September and imprisoned thousands, sentencing more than a dozen to death.
The company’s website shows that it has sold equipment to Iran’s notorious Revolutionary Guard and other security agencies, while Intel Corp. lists Tiandy as a partner providing its processors for some of the Chinese firm’s video recording equipment.
Sen. Rubio has asked the State, Treasury and Commerce departments to see if Tiandy has violated US laws against assisting organizations violating human rights.
“I request that you determine and report to the Congress whether Tiandy has engaged in conduct that may meet the criteria for designation pursuant to the authorities provided by Congress,” Rubio wrote.
While several Chinese surveillance firms are under US sanctions, Tiandy is not one of them. Experts say the company is one of the most dangerous among similar Chinese firms.
Nonetheless, documents revealed by hackers who tapped into the database of the IRGGC-linked Fars news agency indicate that Ali Khamenei secretly told his inner circle and military commanders that an end to the protest is not in sight.
Meanwhile, according to the leaked audio file of a recent insiders’ meeting at the Basij Militia HQ focusing on the protests, a top IRGC commander has acknowledged that the protests continue to go ahead with full force.
Khabar Online, a moderate conservative news website in Tehran, in a report Wednesday probed into the continuity of the nationwide uprising in Iran and asked whether the Iranian government and Parliament (Majles) have a true understanding of the nature of the protests that have continued for some 75 days so far. The report also tried to shed light on why the use of force is the government's solution for all problems.
To put the bottom-line upfront, the report concluded that one of the main reasons for continuing protests is in fact the government and the parliament's lack of understanding of the situation. Even insider analysts over-emphasize the role of the current economic crisis as a driving force fueling public outrage. The article said that any good analysis should review the course of events in the past 25 years.
The reformist government that came to power in 1997 was unable to institute any political and economic reforms because hardliners obstructed all routes and created many crises for the government. In mid-2000s the government was handed over to conservatives who ruled out political reforms altogether. The nuclear program pursued by hardliners led to US and international sanctions against Iran.
Moderate Hassan Rouhani's victory in 2013 was aimed at eliminating grievances about the economic situation by bringing about a breakthrough in the nuclear issue, but hardliners played the same obstructive role with the resulting economic crisis fuelling protests in 2017-2019.
US-based sociologist Asef Bayat told Etemad newspaper recently that "The current protests have brought together the middle and lower classes as well as ethnic groups such as Kurds, Azaris, and Baluchis with the slogan of 'Woman, Life, Freedom'. This has given a new characteristic to the protests while at the same time concerns about women and their dignity are at the center of the movement." Bayat added, "It looks like the people are determined to take back their lost youth, lost life and lost joys and are looking for a decent, ordinary life denied by the government which has no idea about the powerful quest for normal life."
Bayat attached high importance to how Iranian women felt humiliated by the government, its compulsory hijab rule and its morality police as a factor in the protests. She said it was a similar humiliation felt also by men that brought them to the streets in protest.
Another Iranian sociologist, Yousef Abazari highlighted the emergence of a new generation that cannot stand the dictatorship of existing rulers.
The scholars said that because of all kinds of restrictions, and general mismanagement, society has left behind all peaceful stages and has entered a phase characterized by anger while the government's only solution is suppressing this anger. This, they said, can only deepen and strengthen the sulking between the people and the government
The user-initiated change which people began noticing on Wednesday is not unprecedented. In August 2015 the name of the bustling street, which runs nearly 18 km from the south of the capital to north, reverted to Pahlavi for a short time. The state broadcaster IRIB reported the incident at the time and called it “Google’s mischief”.
Similarly, the name of Vozara hotel-apartment on Tehran’s Vozara street, now shows as Mahsa Amini Hotel Apartment, presumably because it was at the morality police headquarters on Vozara street that she had a stroke caused by blows to her head while she was being arrested. On social media there have been many calls to rename the street after her.
Google, however, may have nothing to do with the change, which supporters of monarchy in Iran have hugely welcomed. Although individual users cannot change city, town, village and street names on the maps, names can be altered using Google’s feedback feature of the maps if a large group of users report the names are wrong and suggest alternative.
Google maps may have become a new battleground where the opposition demanding regime change and the authorities and their supporters fight over street and even city names. Both sides have the means to fight the battle, but who wins will remain to be seen.
“This street was built by [Reza Shah] Pahlavi and its name will always remain Pahlavi,” one the many twitterati who welcomed the change wrote.
The boulevard, which is also the longest in the Middle East, has gone through several names since it was completed in 1933 after a construction period of eleven years. The tree-lined road with massive trees on both sides was originally called Pahlavi Avenue, after King Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Like many other roads and even cities and towns, the street was renamed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The first name chosen by revolutionaries was Mossadeq, after Mohammad Mossadeq, the former nationalist prime minister under the Shah who was venerated by many for nationalizing Iran's oil.
Two and half years after the revolution, when Islamists had consolidated their power in the country and completely driven nationalists to the sidelines, the road was once again renamed, this time to Valiasr, to reflect the change. Valiasr (vali-ye asr) refers to Imam Mahdi, an Arab descendant of Prophet Mohammad, who Shiites believers say has been in occultation since the 9th century AD.
In the coming years many other place names underwent similar changes. Most new roads, squares, and highways were named after historical and contemporary Islamic figures such as Sheikh Fazlollah [Nouri] (1843-1909).
Nouri was a Qajar period cleric and politician who was hanged as a traitor by revolutionaries during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911) for defending the old order and opposing constitutionalism and the establishment of a parliament. While the religious establishment venerates Fazlollah and calls him a shahid (martyr), to many ordinary Iranians to this day Fazlollah is a symbol of reactionary religious establishment because he supported the king’s coup against the constitutionalists and opposed modernization of the country.
