1- In 43, I was six years old when they took me to Savak Qom to visit my father who was in temporary detention at the branch of this organization on Station Street in Qom. They had taken him there to punish and intimidate him because he had been selling and distributing the banned book “Tawzih al-Masa’il” by Ayatollah Khomeini with his own special technique in his bookstore.

His technique was extremely simple. The late (deceased in 1354) had changed the cover and first page of the published treatises of previous years and had replaced it with the name of another source of emulation (for example, Khoei) and confidentially explained to Khomeini’s followers who were seeking his treatise: Although the name of another source of emulation is written on the cover and first page of the book he hands to the customer, the text inside the book is completely the same as the practical treatise of Ayatollah Khomeini.

I told this memory to clarify, censorship no matter how complicated, layered, difficult and unpredictable it may be, is like “knowledge that if it is in the stars, people of the Persian nation will find it”. Our fathers, who had limited education and skills, were brave and capable enough to overcome censorship, coercion, and baseless prohibitions, and strive to achieve their interests, freedom, and business.

2- Recently, I read an article that stated that what represents censorship is “gate” and the duty of the gate is to purify information for the power system. However, sometimes it is observed that the power system has lost its legitimate foundations in its main centers, which it censors for, and has lost them. Let us remember that in the middle of 1400 and after the start of Mr. Raisi’s government, the “protection of the virtual space” plan was launched in the eleventh parliament, which is a stronghold of hardline fundamentalists, and after many efforts, even risking and discussing it in the open session of the parliament, it was not accepted. This parliament was forced to put its baseless and harmful plan into action temporarily by a limited group of extremist representatives, which, of course, is not justifiable even according to the existing legal standards of the country.

3- Censorship is usually placed on gates that deal with information; meaning its most important task is to control what information passes through this gate and reaches society, or vice versa, what information is suitable for government consumption and whether this information poses any risks to the interests and ideology of the government or not. With this assumption and under all pressures, stresses, and difficulties, various and numerous sections of culture, art, and media have been able to continue their work – if not in ideal standards, at least in a tolerable and feasible level. Look at the movement and uprising of “Women’s Freedom” which was ultimately crushed by the arrest of two female journalists and one or two newspapers that had reported on the gate, and then these two young women were charged with espionage and kept in detention for 17 months until they were recently temporarily released.

4- Censorship usually and precisely starts from a point where the power is seeking to control the “big story” and is not willing to face a story that questions and challenges it. Therefore, as soon as we realize that each of the individuals can have their own opinions and express them against the “big story”, censorship begins to behave. If it is a book, it should be reviewed and edited or rewritten with the guidance and advice of experts. If it is a play or theater, the dialogues and characters should be arranged according to the taste of the gate. If it is a film production, actors who are not banned or on the blacklist should be used until the end…

5- We are now living in an era where information has surpassed the control of censors; meaning that the production of information and dissemination technologies have grown to a point where they have far surpassed the gates that were once able to control them. It is believed that with the rapid advancements in technology, especially in the field of information and communication, and the emergence of satellite internet and the use of artificial intelligence in the production of cultural, artistic, and media works, the gates that were once feared and used to control the minds and spirits of people have now lost much of their effectiveness. It is optimistic to say that within the next 4 or 5 years, they will completely disappear. From now on, the generation that enters the field of cultural, artistic, and media work is not only much smarter than the previous generation, but also does not need to rely on proxy servers to combat censorship, thanks to new technologies. The production of online books and publications, their distribution through the internet and social

Perhaps this is why, despite the filtering of applications such as Instagram, Telegram, and X Network (Twitter), now almost all senior government officials have accounts on these networks and have attracted millions of followers through them. They are busy publishing their own content and opinions using these communication tools. Of course, this phenomenon is one of the bitter jokes of our time; politicians consider using something that they have declared forbidden and illegal for their own people as permissible and even necessary for themselves.