Mohammadjavad Raadi

Posted on Jul 27, 2019

If You Don't Know, Now You Know - GitHub Is Restricting Access For Users From Iran And A Few Other Embargoed Countries

#opensource #discuss #webdev #news

Here's something you may never have to see in your lifetime:

This is not something new to me and many others. In fact these sort of discriminations have happened to me so much that I'm very sad to have gotten used to it. Let me catch you up on what's going on.

Update 1 - 28/7/19

It is now possible to make your private repositories public.

A few days ago, I received an email from GitHub which stated that my GitHub account has been restricted due to "Trade Control Laws Restrictions". Opening my GitHub profile, I found out that I can't access my private repositories. It also had stopped publishing my GitHub Pages sites. I was pretty upset and disappointed to see this happen again.

I understand that GitHub may be innocent and simply obligated to comply by the US government laws and regulations but here's the sad part, it's not the governments who suffer. It's us. We have to pay the price just because governments and politicians don't get along.

I do appreciate GitHub providing free private repository hosting for us, but I do believe it was absolutely unprofessional and unethical to block our access to our private assets without any prior notice.

You might think, "what's the big deal?! there are many alternatives out there." Yeah, I know but this is not what it's about. It's about being constantly overlooked and discriminated against and not being able to have the same right to access the tools and resources as your fellow DEVs. 😔

How would you feel like if you wake up tomorrow and see that @ben is blocking your access to this great community of amazing developers for a stupid reason?

Please make sure to checkout this repo for more information and see how you can help us.

1995parham / github-do-not-ban-us

GitHub do not ban us from open source world 🇮🇷

A Message to GitHub

Attention! We are so thankful for your support. This repository always shows that people are all together against unfortunate happening around the world As GitHub revised some of the previous restrictions, we decided to reduce this repository's activity. Of course, it does not mean that we agree with the sanctions and the GitHub We will post a conclusion and explain more soon, please wait for that. The campaign will be terminated Thursday 1 August 23:59 (Tehran Time GMT +4:30). After this time we won't merge any new PR. Once again thanks for your support and kindness Please wait for our final conclusion

Tip: You can use …

View on GitHub

Oldest comments (105)

Michael Caveney • Jul 27 '19

I intellectually understand why the company is doing this, but it definitely seems like they're throwing Iranian devs under the bus instead of expending some effort to figure out how they can be accommodated. This is a bad look for GitHub.

Fernando B 🚀 • Jul 28 '19

Github has no say in any of this all they can do is comply with trade bans. If Github was still doing business in Iran they'd be fined.

Julian Garamendy • Jul 27 '19

This is terrible!
Is the ban/block based on your IP address? or the location field in your profile?
or something else?

Nathan Heffley • Jul 27 '19 • Edited

I think that's the worst part, apparently it isn't IP/geolocation based because there is at least one guy who lives and works in Finland that got blocked: twitter.com/Farzad_YZ/status/11546...

His GitHub says he is in Helsinki as well, github.com/farskid

And it's a ban on your account, so even if you left Iran you wouldn't be unbanned.

Fernando B 🚀 • Jul 28 '19

It might be where you created your account.

Vadorequest • Oct 26 '19

It's probably the country of origin you defined where signing up. IP and nationality is very different and can't be relied on.

Ben Halpern • Jul 27 '19 • Edited

I understand that GitHub may be innocent and simply obligated to comply by the US government laws and regulations but here's the sad part, it's not the governments who suffer. It's us.

I hope that this news mobilizes developers to get involved in the discussion. This is not a situation with an easy answer, and it needs to be elevated so that we don't let it get swept away as we move past this news cycle.

Here's another discussion going on right now as well:

Github Must Be a Free Platform

Milad Nekofar ・ Jul 26 '19 ・ 1 min read

#github #opensource #iran #discuss

Mohammadjavad Raadi • Jul 28 '19 • Edited

I really appreciate you getting involved in this discussion. It's a long shot and it may not even happen but the least they can do is give us access to download our private repositories.

mahdiiranpoor • Feb 26 '22

I totally agree with you dear friend In the text above

Eli Bierman • Jul 27 '19

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Github is a symbol for open source, which is about bringing people together across boundaries. This nationality-based discrimination is the opposite of that, adding insult to injury. I hope GitHub does a git revert and rolls back these changes. Sending support to the repo from the US!

Rémy 🤖 • Jul 27 '19

GitHub is a symbol for Microsoft buying developers 🙈

🦄N B🛡 • May 22 '20

BAH! shakes cane

Gerasimos (Makis) Maropoulos • Jul 27 '19 • Edited

I am really socked... Just added my contribution. I'll do my bests for this to change, github should be for everyone, without discrimination.

Mohammadjavad Raadi • Jul 28 '19

Thanks. Apparently repos made by restricted users isn't making it on the trending list.

Gerasimos (Makis) Maropoulos • Jul 28 '19 • Edited

My pleasure. About the trending list, it's not only that. I think that the algorithm for the trending repos has been changed, without any update from Github, a week ago I sent them an e-mail to explain what is changed to the community, never got a reply about it.

How I know it? Repositories with 5-10 stars are shown in the list and some of my own repos with 20-30 per day don't. The order of listing is also changed, it doesn't order by the highest to lowest number of stars anymore.

I don't know whats happened after the microsoft's acquisition and I am not even a guy who ever hated Microsoft.

Αnd now I hear this about users got ban because of a country they are living on. I am really disappointed and angry in the same time.

PR link updated, sorry for the mistake @mjraadi.

Mohammadjavad Raadi • Jul 28 '19

I appreciate the support. BTW, it's not based on where you live, it's been confirmed that it's soely based on your nationality.

Julian Garamendy • Jul 28 '19

And how do they determine your nationality!?
(I don't think I've stated mine.)

Mohammadjavad Raadi • Jul 28 '19

I'm very interested to know how too.

Ozkar L. Garcell • Jul 28 '19

Yo DEVs! I'm a backend dev and open source advocate, Cuban by birth, and currently living in NorthEast Cuba. A few weeks ago, in one of the Telegram channel when mostly of the FOSS advocates of the Island, gather to share knowledge, projects, questions, or simple 'how is your day?', We made a curated list of all the open source projects in GitHub by now. Here's the link: Cuban Open Sourcers
By now, some of those contributors already have the notification of thier account to be restricted, the rest of us are expecting it soon.
Now Github joins SlackHQ, Docker, Dell, Gitlab, and many other companies or online services we have restricted due to US laws.
This is a bad news for all the Cuban devs, and for the other fellows devs of the countries affected as well. We really hope this could be solved.

Meysam Faghfouri • Jul 28 '19

I got shocked because this was something like war maneuver against freedom and the open-source world. and like always, we have to pay the price of stupid politics of our governments!

Jason C. McDonald • Jul 28 '19

I've just added my name and a together/ message to the repo. Thanks for the link! Sharing this.

leob • Jul 28 '19

Could this be because Github is now owned by Microsoft? Anyway I completely agree, ridiculous that common people like you and me suffer because the leaders of our countries don't like each other.

Mohammadjavad Raadi • Jul 28 '19

It's not just GitHub, We've had this issue with most US based tech giants.

leob • Jul 28 '19 • Edited

It's all Trump's fault, he's extremely biased ... Saudi Arabia harbors and supports 10 times more terrorists than Iran ever did, while half Yemen is in ruin because of Saudi sponsored war, but all of that is okay with him as long as he can ship billions of USD on weapons sales to the Saudis.

Anything they do is okay apparently, including the worst human rights violations, because they're "friends" of the US. Europe/EU still wants to have normal relationships with Iran but it's made all but impossible by the US government.

Trump's got no brain, no common sense and no empathy, worst president ever, but I'm stating the obvious. This is probably the most political comment on dev.to ever, but I don't care, the truth must be told.

Mahesh K • Jul 28 '19

It's not even about trump, this drama predates trump or even bush. Paypal and other financial providers are blocking many countries under the excuse of human rights and political POV for last 2 decades.

leob • Jul 28 '19

That must be extremely annoying, I completely understand your frustration ... can't really understand that commercial companies are so biased for nonsensical reasons.