Finns, Chinese assist Iranian repression

[TruthSeeker]

Iranian activist sues telecoms firm over 'spying system'

An imprisoned Iranian activist is suing Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) over allegations that the telecommunications company provided the Islamic regime with a monitoring system it used to spy on the opposition Green movement.

Isa Saharkhiz, a prominent journalist and political figure, was arrested after last summer's disputed presidential election.

Saharkhiz, who is still in detention, discovered during his interrogation in Tehran's Evin prison that his whereabouts were revealed when security officials listened in to his mobile phone conversations using technology NSN allegedly sold to Iran, his son Mehdi told the Guardian.

Moawad & Herischi, a Maryland law firm, has submitted an official complaint to a federal court in the US state of Virginia, alleging that Saharkhiz was tortured and mistreated because of the government's monitoring of his conversations.

NSN has confirmed to the Guardian that it sold the Iranian regime a monitoring system called Lawful Interception Management System (LIMS) in 2008. The company insists the technology is standard equipment in use in dozens of countries, but Saharkhiz's lawyers argue that NSN could have sold its mobile phone service without the monitoring technology, which should not have been made available to a country with a record of human rights abuses.

NSN said it halted all work related to monitoring in 2009.

"The monitoring system that NSN sold to Iran was subsidiary to the main network," Ali Herischi said. "They provided Iran with the network for many years before deciding to sell the spy system. My question is why they decided to provide Iran with the monitoring function when they knew that [the government] was abusing human rights and suppressing the opposition?"

In July last year, the Guardian reported that NSN had been the subject of a boycott inside Iran after consumers sympathetic to the post-election protest movement targeted it and several other companies they accused of collaborating with the regime.

Vendors in Tehran said that the demand for Nokia handsets dropped by as much as half in the wake of the boycott call.

Although NSN has apparently stopped providing Iran with technical support for LIMS,the company continues to provide other mobile telephone services in Iran.

Meanwhile, two Chinese firms have stepped in to offer technical support for the monitoring system, according to an Iranian engineer who works for the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI).

"Since NSN stopped supporting Iran with the spy system, two Chinese companies, ZTE Corporation and Huawei, are helping Iran with the spy system in secret."

NSN's parent companies, Nokia, the Finnish telecoms firm and Siemens AG, the German engineering giant, have also been named in the lawsuit. Neither company has commented on Saharkhiz's complaint.

Iranian activist sues telecoms firm over 'spying system' | World news | The Guardian


Freedom-loving Chinese to the rescue!! Can't have the mullahs in the dark .....

 

[ای ایران]

Overall it doesnt matter. People in Iran have long been aware that the state eavesdrops on phone conversations. This happened under the regime of the Shah too. The real ‘battle’ and challenge for the regime is the opposition’s use of the internet as its main medium of communication. In this regard, it is the US-led sanctions which have harmed the Iranian opposition and civil-rights movements over the years since Iranians have been prevented from downloading a lot of new software. Im not sure to what extent Obama’s admin has addressed this.