With the Iranian presidential elections coming up on June 14, high-speed, filter-free Internet access in the Islamic republic has become scarce. Earlier this month, the Iranian daily Ghanoon likened the state of the Internet in Iran to being in a coma — alive but barely functioning.

Although Iran had some 28 million Internet users in 2009 — including the largest number of bloggers and general users in the Middle East — Iranians continue to find themselves stuck behind an “electronic curtain” without the tools to get around it or through it. 

During the 2009 post-election protests, or Green Movement, tools like FreeGate and DynaWeb allowed citizen journalists to share testimonies and videos with the world at a time when the international media was prevented from covering the crackdown on demonstrators.

The civil liberties movement in Iran has grown, but the regime continues to suppress dissent, particularly regarding freedom of expression on the Internet. It was not until Iranian authorities saw how such social media websites as Facebook and YouTube could be used against them that the government deemed the Internet a threat to its existence. One should not, however, confuse the Green Movement with a social media revolution.