Arrest of Ziya Sadr Targets Bitcoin Educators – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion piece by Robert Hall, a content creator and small business owner.
According to news reports, a prominent Iranian Bitcoin lawyer Ziya Sadr was arrested in Tehran on September 19. There is not much information about his arrest, but with the ongoing unrest in Iran, the government may have seen him as a threat to their system.
The youth of Iran are fed up with the current regime’s inability to create economic opportunities and deal with rampant inflation that drains their savings and makes it impossible to save for the future or afford the present. Iranians are no strangers to inflation and are currently experiencing an inflation rate of 25%.
Iran has a relatively young population that has a hunger for change, as shown by these recent protests that are destabilizing the entire country; it is not hard to see why someone promoting a revolutionary technology would be targeted by the Iranian government. If too many protesters learn about bitcoin before the regime can stop it, it could contribute to the end of the clerical regime.
Iranian authorities targeted him because he was effective in sharing the message of Bitcoin and hoped it would inspire. Mr. Sadr, before his arrest, was Well known to translate Bitcoin content into Farsi and educate people on how to use Bitcoin in a privacy-enhanced way.
Educating others about Bitcoin and how to use it is exactly what governments around the world do not want to see happen on a mass scale. At this stage of the game, governments tolerate Bitcoin because they don’t see it as a threat…yet.
They think they have everything under control with their FUD narrative in the media. It does not work. Adoption has continued unabated, even in a bear market. Miners connect. The number of nodes is increasing. The Lightning Network is maturing, and new exciting products are being developed. The revolution is here. They just don’t know it yet.
The gerontocracy currently in political power in America does not understand that Bitcoin was created to take away their ability to make money out of thin air and enslave the entire planet.
Once it’s taken away – and one day it will be – all bets are off on what will happen. The powers that be don’t want you to leave the fiat plantation. I know this is not politically correct, but I will say it anyway. What Bitcoin content creators are doing to educate people about Bitcoin and how to use it is akin to teaching slaves to read and write during slavery.
Education undermines governments control mechanisms they have in place to control your mind and keep you on the fiat plantation. It starts with the fiat education system. The goal is not to create highly educated citizens who are able to think for themselves and maintain our form of self-government.
The unspoken goal of education, as the late great George Carlin said, “They want people who are just smart enough to do the paperwork, and just stupid enough to accept these increasingly shitty jobs with lower pay, longer hours, reduced benefits , the end of overtime and a disappearing pension that disappears the moment you go to collect it.”
If you manage to break free from that control mechanism, you still have to contend with the media machine and how they control the minds of many people around the world. The media is owned by just a few corporate interests that intend to keep the current system afloat.
The media’s power to collaborate and influence was on full display back in 2020 during the height of the pandemic when the world was bombarded with messages about wearing a mask, despite being reversed, “15 days to slow the spread,” despite it wasn’t true, and all the other propaganda that was sent on behalf of governments. It worked. How many people ended up doing exactly what the government said? Billions of people. They could quickly turn this power against Bitcoiners.
“This is extremely dangerous for our democracy”
Who were portrayed as the evil people who wanted to kill Grandma? The people who questioned the narrative about the virus. They were ridiculed by their families and lost their jobs because they did not want to be forced to take a vaccine.
When push comes to shove, the government must crush dissent and opposition to the fiat system in order for it to survive. They must block exits and burn the bridges; it’s that simple. As recently as last year, the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, made passing reference to blocking access to “cryptos” in general, but we all know that bitcoin is the real target.
Will public Bitcoiners be targeted in the future?
Honestly, anything is possible. If you’re a significant Bitcoin influencer with thousands of social media followers, you should probably assume you’re on the government’s radar. Governments make plans for this sort of thing all the time. If you are a Bitcoiner, you are automatically a dissident in their book and will be treated as such if the stability of government operations is threatened.
It wouldn’t be that hard for the media to label Bitcoin advocates as domestic terrorists, incite the public and their families to turn against them and throw them in jail. They could use a “crisis” in the sovereign debt market as a pretext to go after Bitcoiners in general.
Bitcoiners should take note of what is happening around the world and plan accordingly. We are in the midst of a financial revolution; it is up to Bitcoiners to ensure that the revolution is a success. Education is the key.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
