http://dgolriz.blogspot.com

One of the most prominent newspapers of The Netherlands called 'Volkskrant' published an article today in which an appeal was made to all universities, companies and organizations in The Netherlands to provide their proxy servers to the people of Iran so that they can communicate freely. The appeal has been signed and supported by a large number of Dutch politicians, academics and intellectuals.

“In the end it is not the words used by our enemies that we shall remember, but the silence of our friends.” With these legendary words Martin Luther King expressed what the Iranian people must be feeling at this moment. In the streets of Iran, hundreds of thousands of people are risking their lives for freedom. The free West however still chooses to remain frightfully silent.

It becomes more and more difficult for the protesters in Iran to raise their voices peacefully. The regime of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad has been successful in blocking various channels of communication and those who nevertheless succeed in using the internet and phone lines, are risking their very lives.

This regime has, with the aid of Western technologies, accomplished to make organizing protests and relaying information to Western media and people in Iran a life threatening endeavour. The price for this unethical act by Western companies of supporting a tyrannous regime is being paid for by the peaceful protesters in Iran.

It is urgent to make a stand against the suppression of peaceful protesters, against the stranglehold of this regime’s censorship, against the cowardly position of political neutrality and against the complicity of silence. It is pressing to defend democratic values. The same kind of technologies used by the regime in Iran to suppress Iranian people, can be utilised to circumvent censorship and to set up anonymous proxy servers for people in Iran.

At this moment many computers in the Netherlands only use a fraction of their internet bandwidth. This excess bandwidth can be rerouted to Iranian protesters in order to enable the free and anonymous flow of information. This way they will be able to share information with each other and with Western media.

These times demand more than ‘political neutrality’ as silence can only be seen as complicity. We can not commemorate hundreds of thousands of people who fought for our freedom in the past and abandon those who are fighting for the same, right at this moment.

We therefore appeal to every company, organization and university in The Netherlands to make part of their servers and network bandwidth available to the Iranian protesters. We ask every company, organization and university in the Netherlands to stand for democratic values, the price of which is being paid by the lives of people in Iran, partially due to our own Western technologies.

For more information visit: iProxyIran.tk

The initiators

- Mr. D.A.J. Suurland, Ph.D Candidate Department of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (spokesman) - Damon Golriz, lecturer, The Hague University - Dr. Amanda Kluveld, historian, University of Amsterdam - Marina Lacroix, lecturer Political Science, University of Amsterdam - Arthur Wolff, student Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis & Management at Delft University of Technology

Committee of Recommendation

• Hans van Baalen (a Dutch Member of the European Parliament)
• Prof. Tom Barkhuysen (Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University)
• Prof. Henri Beunders (Professor of History, Media and Culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam)
• Prof. Frits Bolkestein (Professor of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences and former Dutch European Commissioner)
• Harry van Bommel (a Dutch parliamentarian and spokesperson for the Socialist Party, SP)
• Prof. Paul Cliteur (Professor of Encyclopedia of Law at Leiden University)
• Martijn van Dam (a Dutch parliamentarian and spokesperson for the Dutch Labour Party, PvdA, which is the second largest political party in the Netherlands)
• Prof. Afshin Ellian (Professor of Social Cohesion and citizenship, Department of Jurisprudence at Leiden University)
• Anita Fähmel (a local politician for the local Leefbaar Party in Rotterdam)
• Prof. Meindert Fennema (Professor in political theory of ethnic relations at the University of Amsterdam)
• Farhad Golyardi (Chief-editor of Eutopia.nl)
• Femke Halsema (a member of the House of Representatives since 1998. And the leader of the Green Left parliamentary party in the House of Representatives since 2002.)
• Theodor Holman (journalist, presenter, and writer.)
• Prof. Rikki Holtmaat (Professor of International Non-Discrimination Law at Leiden University)
• Farah Karimi (Director of Oxfam Novib and a former member of parliament)
• Prof. Andreas Kinnengin (Professor of legal philosophy at the University of Leiden, and the most prominent conservative philosopher in The Netherlands)
• Henk Krol (Chief-editor of the Gay Krant)
• Dr. Tanja van der Meer (Professor of Law at Maastricht University)
• Dick Pels (publicist and President of the thinktank Waterland)
• Em. Prof.Bernard van Praag (University Professor of Applied Economics, University of Amsterdam)
• Jan Pronk (a Dutch politician and diplomat, he was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of Mission for the United Nations Mission in Sudan)
• Sandra Reemer (singer)
• Mark Rutte (a Dutch VVD politician and parliamentary leader for that party in the House of Representatives)
• Stephan Sanders (publicist)
• Prof. Paul Scheffer (is a Dutch author, professor at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and member of the Partij van de Arbeid)
• Xandra Schutte (Chief-editor of the influential weekly newspaper Green Amsterdam)
• Bart-Jan Spruyt (publicist and one of the most prominent conservative philosophers in The Netherlands.)
• Em. Prof. Abram de Swaan (University Professor of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam)
• Mr. Richard Verkijk (legal researcher / attorney, University of Maastricht)
• Prof. Frank van Vree (Professor of Journalism and Culture, University of Amsterdam)
• Geert Wilders (Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom PVV)
• Amsterdam Student Association Debate Bonaparte
• Nijmegen Students Debate Association Trivium
• PerspectieF / Christian Union Youth