'DELETE FROM users WHERE location = 'IRAN';' describes the real-life experiences of Iranian software engineers facing restrictions everywhere.
Iranian software engineer Avestura has shared his experiences of the sanctions and censorship he faces as a result of being born in Iran.
delete-from-users-where-location-iran.md · GitHub
The first episode is the sanctions we received from Microsoft.
As a student, Avestura developed EyesGuard, an open source project, and published it on the Microsoft Store. However, one day, EyesGuard was removed from the Microsoft Store.
When Avestura noticed, the software page, developer account, and all supportive and suggestive comments had disappeared. Avestura contacted support and sent emails to as many people as possible, but was completely ignored.
The second story concerns Notion, the app Avestura used to manage his notes. One day, the app suddenly decided to erase all data related to users living in Iran. According to a support representative, this decision was based on guidelines regarding economic sanctions against Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria, and users living in these countries will have their accounts permanently suspended.
The third example is a personal blog. Avestura says he normally uses a VPN, but one day when he tried to access
The fourth is GitLab. GitLab has reportedly suspended all accounts accessed from Iranian IP addresses in the past, and even public repositories have not been unlocked. In 2018, GitLab migrated its hosting services from Azure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and announced that users in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria would no longer be able to access GitLab due to US economic sanctions.
In addition, access to various other services such as AWS, GCP, Azure, Coursera, Udemy, Stripe, and PayPal is also unavailable.
GitHub temporarily blocked access from Iran, but later obtained a license from the U.S. government to allow Iranians to use the service. According to GitHub, the access restrictions were implemented because the U.S. prohibits all transactions with countries subject to sanctions. However, the company has been exploring ways to relax the restrictions because it believes that 'all developers should be able to use GitHub freely, regardless of their location.'
The United States has a sanctions program run by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and violations can result in fines. While it is possible to obtain a license to be exempt from sanctions, like GitHub, the legal requirements are strict and there are few benefits, making it a high-risk program.
'I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding to think that just because Iran is called the Islamic Republic of Iran, it's a government governed by the people based on a republican system ,' Avestura said. 'I've never seen anyone in real life who actually supports Russian aggression. I want to be clear that the decision to support Russia does not represent the Iranian people. There is a theocratic minority regime that rules Iran without democratic legitimacy, and the Iranian people have been protesting and rebelling against this regime for many years, but unfortunately, they are unarmed and facing brutal repression. In my experience, the majority of Iranians around me, including myself, firmly support Ukraine and oppose Russian aggression.'
She added: 'I don't believe that companies that block Iran have any ill will towards any particular group. It's a business after all. I don't hate my customers, I'm just following the rules of the game. However, if one day I am forced by law or by my government to block services to a particular group, I will think twice before writing my if statements and try to be more empathetic. The people on the other side of the screen are more important than a few lines at my table. I am not calling for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. I want to be clear that I do not support Iran's actions, but rather support the movement to liberate the people from the mafia-like cult that controls a country with thousands of years of history. The actions of the groups that control Iran are indefensible, and in fact, the Iranian people are the primary victims. I feel particularly strongly about this issue because someone close to me has had a gun held to their throat by regime agents who threatened to kill them if they participated in protests.'
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