Editor’s Note: A series of discussions were held during the week of July 1 in Brussels, as the European Parliament focused on human rights abuses and civil society in Iran. InsideIRAN conducted the following interview in Brussels with Delbar Tavakoli, a journalist who worked for thirteen years in Iran and recently fled to Paris.

Q: How does the government in Iran manipulate the Internet? Please provide some examples that you have seen of this sort of manipulation and misuse.

Tavakoli: The most notable organization that manipulates the Internet and it does it in a very open, obvious, and shameless way is Fars news. Fars has a website and it feeds other news agencies and newspapers as a semi-official news agency through its website. They put up fake shows on their sites! They easily deny what has been reported elsewhere as news and put on their own fake news show. Sometimes they just change the news, but other times Fars changes public opinion through its means of spreading fake news. You probably follow Fars news. When they feed other news agencies with Fars material, then those agencies cannot have access to decent material. They even hack other websites and take over them.

Q: Has this been a successful method?

Tavakoli: Yes. One of the reasons the government has been so successful in suppressing the opposition is their optimal utilization of agencies such as Fars news. The government has exclusive access to high-speed Internet and therefore has power. They control what is being spread as information and news.

Q: There are segments of society that are influenced by this propaganda and information monopoly. Do they have free access to the Internet? Is it just the upper-middle class and the upper class that have access to the Internet? Would it make a difference if those influenced by government propaganda had better access to the Internet?

Takakoli: Let me tell you what our main problem in Iran is: our lives are politicized. News in Iran is spread through the primitive and poor method of word of mouth; like a game of telephone. Our cab drivers, our teachers, our grocers, and our journalists all transmit the news in an oral fashion. But this means that one person can search something on the Internet and read some news, and then tell someone in a cab and that would spread to hundreds of people. So, even one person like this can be very effective.

Q: Does the Iranian opposition expect help from Western governments, especially the United States, in regard to opening up and easing access to the Internet? What should the West do?

Tavakoli: The opposition has no expectations of direct funding from the West. But they expect the West to create some obstacles for the government and prevent them from censoring the news. The West imposes sanctions against Iran and hurts the average Iranian, while making the dictators much stronger through sanctions. We expect the West to place conditions in agreements and deals they sign with Iran.

Q: But should the West spend money to buy better telecommunications technology, such as better satellites that would improves Internet access for Iranians?

Takakoli: We all know that if the West is doing something, it is first and foremost concerned with its own interests. They are not really doing it for us. Our democratic movement did not start last year. We have been involved in this fight since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. But if one day, in our wildest dreams, the West cared for the Iranian people and decided to do something to help them out in a direct and obvious way, then that would become a tool for the government as an excuse to oppress everyone. The government would divert everyone’s attention from its human rights abuses and would just blame everything on foreign intervention.

Q: How do Iranian journalists and activists use the internet to help others in Iran? Have they been able to use it more successfully outside Iran?

Tavakoli: The only way I have here to communicate with my colleagues in Iran and get the news is through the Internet. I can go contact them right now. I can lobby for them if they are in prison. I can send them real news. We start campaigns to get prisoners released. It is very effective and we count on it. It is our lifeline.

Q: When did you leave Iran?

Tavakoli: I left Iran last year and lived in Turkey for nine months. The Turkish police monitored my every move and listened to my every phone conversation. They are very friendly with the Iranian government and they put enormous pressure on us in Turkey. I had no freedom there and I wasn’t safe.