There clearly is censorship of the Internet, but Iranian web bloggers, Iranian youth, are among the most sophisticated users of the Internet and have found all sorts of ways of avoiding these filters. Apparently, after the English language, Persian is the second most widely used language for web blogs; there are some 70,000 Persian-language web blogs. The younger generation in Iran are Internet savvy, they're glued to satellite television, and that is part of the problem that the hard-liners have. Even when oil was trading at $140 a barrel—let alone at $40 a barrel—and in an economic system that is really not viable, a system of crony capitalism and patronage to particular groups that support the government, the temptation to create these types of distractions is now that much greater, which is why there is a particular danger of massive crackdowns, executions, and these sorts of policies.
I want to quickly mention two points. Your point about collective sanctions is exactly correct. The point is that punishing the Iranian people is not going to achieve the objective. Really, the majority of people need to be empowered to express what are in large part liberal, though nationalistic, sentiments. The question of pursuing targeted sanctions is an essential part of facilitating the transformation of Iran, just as threatening military confrontation is a very bad idea, not only because of its international law dimensions but because of the way in which it is used by hard-liners to rally people's nationalist sentiments.
The idea of an unconditional engagement, of a grand bargain, an appeasement, is equally a problem, because it will sweep under the carpet any discussion of human rights violations. The international community has to begin to move in the direction of holding particular leaders accountable for demonization, for incitement to hatred, for the crimes that are occurring.
What we see now is a much more sophisticated way of achieving the same thing as was achieved in the 1980s through systematic executions. You have thousands of newspaper articles that demonize the Bahá'ís and people like Shirin Ebadi as an agent of the Bahá'ís. Then you have a mob that mysteriously shows up on her doorstep and begins to threaten her with death. This is the way in which the regime is now trying to silence its dissidents.
On the question of agents in Canada, there is a very significant Iranian community here, which for the most part is very prosperous, very successful, and very committed to its Canadian citizenship. But exactly because of that sizeable group here, the regime has tried to infiltrate and identify those it perceives as a threat. This also shows that Canada has considerable leverage, probably because it's the favourite and most attractive place, after Dubai, for Iranians to emigrate. Many of those who are here have very close ties with the inner circle of the regime and have begun to infiltrate that community.
Anyway, that's a discussion for another time, but it also shows that we have leverage by virtue of that presence here in Canada.