Iranian Bitcoin instructor Zia Sadr as well as computer scientist Amir Emad Mirmirani have been arrested during protests this September. The Iranian bitcoin community reported about the incident on Twitter, the platform of the Persian bitcoin community.
After more than 20 days of silence on Sadr’s social media, the community of Twitter Farsi was shocked by the news. It is reported that while he was passing the area as a tech-man’s daily routine in Tehran, he has been detained by IRGC forces.
The reports follow more details, his and other Iranian bail-outs have not been accepted, and he has been moved to Fashafuye’ prison. Some of his accounts on social media are shut down and the reason behind his detainment has not been explained yet.
Sadr is not the only one in jail of his type. In the past week, Amir Emad Mirmirani aka Jadi, a Bitcoin project contributor and educator has been captured from his house by IRGC forces. The agents claimed to do an ordinary Gas-bill check. After entering the property, the scenario turned inhumane and Jadi got arrested and moved to Evin prison. The reason behind, yet unknown.
“The arrest and deactivation of Twitter and Instagram of Jadi Mirmirani, a leading figure of the open source community and programmer, shocked the Iranian technology ecosystem. With 133,000 followers on Twitter, Jadi is a promoter of science and information technology in Iran due to his activities in the field of education and a podcast called Radio Geek.” Comments Persian media company Digiato on their Twitter page.
“Now Evin prison has more educated people than the whole regime’s dictator governance,” is a famous quote among all Iranian Twitter users.
Jadi and Zia, both are very well-known gentlemen, who most Iranian technology learners have probably learned something from.
Zia is well known since 2017 when he was opening up the concept of Bitcoin to ordinary people. He has used all the commonplace social platforms to elaborate on what Bitcoin is, how is it produced, the history behind it, why has it been discovered, and how it can be the future.
Jadi, a famous computer programmer among Iranians, has taught programming in different languages for free for a long time. There are also free videos on his page where he opens Bitcoin source code and explains pieces of it, or even reproduces them in other computer languages. His contribution to Bitcoin was not exploited before some users found his name on Git.
As freedom of speech is a dangerous path in Iran, none of these men have ever expressed anything against the regime directly. Very few critics have been made by them in their works. All in very detail of the ICT ecosystem of Iran and firms that seemingly pertain to it.
Nonetheless, social movements against the regime of Iran have intensified in the past years. This time, the sparkle was the violence against the young lady Mahsa Amini, a first-time visitor to the capital, Tehran. She was brutally beaten and murdered by the regime’s “Morality Police” for not having a “proper” hijab, while she was indeed wearing one according to witnesses.
The report enraged Iranians and was amplified by following brutalities leading to the killing of more than three hundred civilians, including 28 children, until now.
The war against freedom oppressors has inflamed all over the world by the chant of “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which went viral thanks to the #MahsaAmini hashtag, breaking Twitter’s hashtag record.
The people of Iran have strongly and confidently called out for a revolution, neither a protestation nor a riot.
Baby steps towards decentralization and bitcoin bitcoin adoption are taken in Iran. Hashtags on Twitter such as #MahsaAmini are educating the masses. Hacktivist group Anonymous pushed #OpIran into the trends to raise awareness even more. From there, #Bitcoin is just a hashtag away.
“Sooner or later, Bitcoin will be used among the population that consists of a majority of young and educated people, to overthrow the flawed monetary system and complete the power of the people” is echoed by Persian bitcoin enthusiasts over the internet.
