DELETE FROM users WHERE location = 'IRAN';

delete-from-users-where-location-iran.md

DELETE FROM users WHERE location = 'IRAN';

Hi! I am an Iranian Software Engineer, and in this torn paper note, I want to talk about some funny moments I had online related to the fact that I was spawned in this specific region of the world: Iran.

Microsoft deleted my app, ignored my mails

Back when I was a student, I got access to the Microsoft Imagine, and as a result, I got access to the Microsoft Store as a developer. This inspired me write one of my open-source projects called EyesGuard and publish it on Microsoft Store. However, one day, somebody told me that they can no longer find EyesGuard on the store.

I came to the realization that Microsoft deleted my app, my developer account, and all those comments on my app supporting me and suggesting ideas on how to improve the program. I tried to contact the support and email whoever I could, but I was ghosted. Nobody ever explained to me why, but I assume it's because of the sanctions.

Notion wiped me out of existence

Notion is a great product, and it was the primary tool I used to manage my personal notes. Not until they suddenly decided to wipe out every data related to the users residing in Iran. Hopefully, they actually responded to my support message:

It was because of sanctions. However, they told me that they will not restore the data, even if I leave Iran someday:

That said, I am very happy with my own self-hosted Siyuan now.

Mike Cardwell kindly asked me to fuck off

I read hackernews on a daily basis and I visit lots of different websites regularly. I am almost always on my VPN as I am internally firewalled by the government and externally shooed because of the sanctions, so I am probably missing some of these heart-warming messages:

Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.

My VPN turned off, and opening https://www.grepular.com showed me this message. I actually do not blame the people who do this. I think there is a fundamental misconception that people think because "Islamic Republic" has the word "Republic" in it, it must be a government of people in charge. That's not the case. I have yet to see anyone who actually supports Russian aggression in my real life in Iran. Funny enough, Iran's history is full of backstabs by the Russian government.

I tried contacting the author by sending this email:

Hi Mark,

I hope this message finds you well.

While browsing HackerNews, I came across your website but was greeted with this message:

> Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.

I wanted to clarify that the decision to support Russia does not represent the Iranian people. That "your decision" refers to the regime, a theocratic minority that rules Iran without democratic legitimacy. The people of Iran have long protested and revolted against this regime, but unfortunately, they face brutal suppression while unarmed.

In my experience, most Iranians around me, including myself, stand firmly with Ukraine and against Russian aggression.

I’m not asking you to reconsider the IP restriction, you have your reasons and I respect that. I simply wanted to share this perspective and express my solidarity with Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini!

Best regards,
Avestura

I got no replies from them, and I actually didn't expect one.

GitHub freaked me out

I woke up to the news that GitHub has removed the access of Iranians to their private repositories. Well, that was not good. I tried to launch my own self-hosted instance of Gitea to reduce the damage. However, later, GitHub announced that github is now available in Iran by securing a license from the US government, and we're now good. You see? The weather is good, the birds are singing, GitHub is free again. Fantastic!

GitLab freaked me out

Similarly, GitLab banned every account that once accessed from an Iranian IP, however, to this day, they never lifted the ban, even on public repositories. I guess they couldn't secure a license from the US government, or they simply never cared. Good luck to them in either case, though. GitLab is an amazing software. One can always self-host it.

List goes on

The list goes on, and almost all of the services you probabelly heard of is banned here: Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, ...), Educational platforms (coursera, udemy, etc), Payment software (stripe, paypal, ...).

Lessons Learned for me

I don't think any of these companies have bad intentions towards any group of people. They are a business after all. They don't hate their customers; they are just playing the game, and the game has such rules. But if someday some law or government forces me to prevent my services from a group, I'll think twice before writing those if statements. I'll try to have more empathy. People behind those screens are more important than just some rows in my tables.

Footnote

Important

In this text, I am NOT asking for the removal of the sanctions targeted at the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am merely remembering some moments on top of my head. For the record, I do not support the actions of the Islamic Republic, and on the contrary, I am in favor of the movements that release the people from such a mafia-like cult ruling a country with thousands of years of history. The actions of the group in charge of Iran are not defensible, and as a matter of fact, the people of Iran are the first layer of victims. Some examples are listed here. I especially feel it differently, as regime thugs put a gun to the throat of a dear person to me, and threatened to kill him if he showed up in protests.

---

By the way, did you know you could return 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons instead of 403 Forbidden when you're going to ban me next time?

This sucks and I can't imagine the frustration that must come being a developer based in Iran.

I wonder why and how did I get a notification for this gist.

I really feel you man. Nothing we can do but wish ourselves the best and use open source tools as much as possible.
For people who say "Just leave Iran", I have to say one thing and one thing only. It is not as easy as you may think it would bee.
By the way, I've had similar experiances befor and even now.
I've got a braille display from somebody and this display is infact pritty old(from 2012). This display has a cell board problem which means that the hole cell board (where it displays everything in braille) had an overcurrent ran through it. Now I can't send it to South Korea (which is the only producer for the hims company that made these displays) to be able to either repeare it or get a riplacement for this display. That's how ... this country is.

As an Iranian, I want to clarify something. People often assume sanctions against Iran started because of recent events like the Russia–Ukraine war, but most of these sanctions are decades old and rooted in much deeper political issues. And as someone from Isfahan — the same city as my friend who made abow comment — I have to ask, what exactly is a “terrorist” that I’m supposed to be one too? :))

When you decided to refuse friendship with israel (the only democracy in the middle east) and spend all the oil money to the idea of killing all the jews (as your supreme leader said: final solution), when you fund houthies to make Bab al-Mandab Strait insecure for Shipping, when you use diplomatic immunity to ship Fenethylline across countries. When you want to be against world's tranquility.

When you threat the U.S. interests it can label you terrorist and dont exchange any goods with you. What is wrong with this logic? You threaten its citizens and its interests for 5 decades, why the U.S. should behave better than this with this failing nation?

The ordinary citizens of Iran and the government of Iran are two diffrent sectors of operation of this country which are not related together at all.

...

چقدر دلقک اینجا ریخته

با هم مسابقه گذاشتید که به غریبه ها بگید ما از همه بدبخت تریم ؟

Why you dont get some cash and move out of your country ? I know its kinda dumb but maybe move near your country so you can still see your fam ... anyway Its disgusting that civilian must bear the consequences of government acts ...

I see this post as a propaganda towards the iran, by making a fictional character pointing his goverment for not being slayed by the devil of the world. huh there will be some stupid people who will really think that this story is not fictional.

I’m Sorry to inform you that the only fictional part in the words you wrote is most probably yourself:

1. You probably are a bot if you are supporting an authoritarian totalitarian regime that has been, is and will continue now even more brutally than ever as they are finding stronger allies to mass murder and keep suppressing more opposing forces without any code of morality!
2. You are unable to hold your attention to one subject too long because you are addicted to typing out comments just to have them out there even if you don’t know anything about the subject at hand.

In any case I find it disturbing enough: Comments like yours would be even filtered out by any logical bot algorithm as it will in the long and short term, significantly reduce its success rate in applying any engineered mass social media “gray area” campaigns!

Isn't it funny to read people who never experienced bans from services they rely on saying "just change the system around you"?
Empathy comes through pain or great emotional effort, and I've got the first one.

I once was at a point where all the services were available and I felt like the changes in the system around are around the corner.
Now it's 2025, I left home 3 years ago now and the list of services I've been banned from (or better - not allowed) by my citizenship is slowly growing.
Time to get backups to a secure S3!

hak be sareshun :(

I’m Sorry to inform you that the only fictional part in the words you wrote is most probably yourself:

1. You probably are a bot if you are supporting an authoritarian totalitarian regime that has been, is and will continue now even more brutally than ever as they are finding stronger allies to mass murder and keep suppressing more opposing forces without any code of morality!
2. You are unable to hold your attention to one subject too long because you are addicted to typing out comments just to have them out there even if you don’t know anything about the subject at hand.

In any case I find it disturbing enough: Comments like yours would be even filtered out by any logical bot algorithm as it will in the long and short term, significantly reduce its success rate in applying any engineered mass social media “gray area” campaigns!

You’ve already acknowledged the value in what I wrote. If my words were complete nonsense, you wouldn’t have even taken the time to respond. Think about that. Maybe, in time, you’ll realize it yourself. :)

I feel for you.
I can’t really weigh in on the politics, but I empathize with your situation.

This sucks and I can't imagine the frustration that must come being a developer based in Iran.

Thats not about country, thats about how politics relate with each other. If Iranian developer will go to, idk where they can go, there is not much options, let it be Turkey. They are still Iranian citizens. They are still limited with their choices. They will struggle to find some new friends, job, themselves, whatever. They still will be fucked for their place of birth in most countries.

Western services literally pour urine on your face and you keep politely asking to make an exception because you are pro-western… I think you fully deserve all this

Well, that's their problem, not ours. They can return after they get their country back.

You appear to possess all of the humanity of a MAGA American police officer.

Man the comments are vile af

And Israel still can access anything while have an ongoing genocide...

This world is a joke...

It's just sad how notion denied to recover data once you're out of Iran.

And Israel still can access anything while have an ongoing genocide...

This world is a joke...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgjx0zve2no

imho it's a facade action

When Iran puts peace, secularism, development, democracy, etc, above religious extremist ideologies which are 1500 years old and outdated, then Iran will no longer be isolated. But I doubt if that will ever happen!

Sorry that this regressed into a pointless political discussion, and that you've run into these problems.

Folks have been working on this for 15 years, and we've been successful in securing some protections for access for Iranians. Those exemptions/licenses are the most clear for personal communications services, but it allows American companies to provide certain software and services that would otherwise be blocked to Iranians.

Notion might not have needed to restrict you. But, then it comes to developer tools, such as Gitlab, there's fewer protections or specific licenses are required.

The fact is for them that if they are caught providing services without a license/exemption, the penalties for potential violations are criminal or steep fines. So once they notice, they tend to clamp down hard. Lot of annoying fights with companies getting services unblocked one-by-one.

Self-hosting in the right solution. I regret that you hit the filter on both sides. If you have any questions about licenses/exemptions, reach out and perhaps I can offer some advice on pushing back.

All the best.

This is the consequences of supporting terrorism.

Dont get me wrong, im an iranian living in isfahan, most of Iranian people support state terrorism and public executions. In those 12 days war between mullahs and israel we saw how oppositions of ayatollahs lick their boots and spread anti-semitism. Iranian people dont deserve more. A terrorist nation that has a minority human being like me

It’s interesting that you don’t even reveal your own identity, yet you claim to speak on behalf of the “majority of people” and label them as supporters of terrorism!
You know very well that Iran is ruled under a total dictatorship — a regime that has nothing to do with the will of its people. Every time people have protested, they’ve faced brutal repression and mass killings.

So please, don’t attribute the ideological mistakes and crimes of the Islamic Republic to the people.

And you should also know what terrorism actually means. Calling a nation of people — who for decades have resisted an oppressive religious-ideological minority with their bare hands, and who have repeatedly been killed in the process (most recently in 2022) — “terrorists” is not only ignorant but deeply unfair.

This is the consequences of supporting terrorism.
Dont get me wrong, im an iranian living in isfahan, most of Iranian people support state terrorism and public executions. In those 12 days war between mullahs and israel we saw how oppositions of ayatollahs lick their boots and spread anti-semitism. Iranian people dont deserve more. A terrorist nation that has a minority human being like me

It’s interesting that you don’t even reveal your own identity, yet you claim to speak on behalf of the “majority of people” and label them as supporters of terrorism! You know very well that Iran is ruled under a total dictatorship — a regime that has nothing to do with the will of its people. Every time people have protested, they’ve faced brutal repression and mass killings.

So please, don’t attribute the ideological mistakes and crimes of the Islamic Republic to the people.

And you should also know what terrorism actually means. Calling a nation of people — who for decades have resisted an oppressive religious-ideological minority with their bare hands, and who have repeatedly been killed in the process (most recently in 2022) — “terrorists” is not only ignorant but deeply unfair.

I didnt speak on behalf of iranian people, i said as a minority i see how people love mullahs and how mullahs gain power with support of absolute majority.
Im talking about absolute majority of iranian, those who were killed in protests are absolute minority, based on independent statistics protests never reach 0.01 percent of population, and mullahs killed and exexuted protesters when the majority cheered for those executions.
When i was naive i thought just like you but i grew up.
Im sure a couple of months ago when israel started to kill IRGC thugs you or your relatives mourned for them and want revenge.
Most Iranians are not fan of life they more like to be martyrs when they are in the way of killing the jews and christians.
بچه شیعه خارکصده

This is the consequences of supporting terrorism.
Dont get me wrong, im an iranian living in isfahan, most of Iranian people support state terrorism and public executions. In those 12 days war between mullahs and israel we saw how oppositions of ayatollahs lick their boots and spread anti-semitism. Iranian people dont deserve more. A terrorist nation that has a minority human being like me

It’s interesting that you don’t even reveal your own identity, yet you claim to speak on behalf of the “majority of people” and label them as supporters of terrorism! You know very well that Iran is ruled under a total dictatorship — a regime that has nothing to do with the will of its people. Every time people have protested, they’ve faced brutal repression and mass killings.
So please, don’t attribute the ideological mistakes and crimes of the Islamic Republic to the people.
And you should also know what terrorism actually means. Calling a nation of people — who for decades have resisted an oppressive religious-ideological minority with their bare hands, and who have repeatedly been killed in the process (most recently in 2022) — “terrorists” is not only ignorant but deeply unfair.

I didnt speak on behalf of iranian people, i said as a minority i see how people love mullahs and how mullahs gain power with support of absolute majority. Im talking about absolute majority of iranian, those who were killed in protests are absolute minority, based on independent statistics protests never reach 0.01 percent of population, and mullahs killed and exexuted protesters when the majority cheered for those executions. When i was naive i thought just like you but i grew up. Im sure a couple of months ago when israel started to kill IRGC thugs you or your relatives mourned for them and want revenge. Most Iranians are not fan of life they more like to be martyrs when they are in the way of killing the jews and christians. بچه شیعه خارکصده

First of all, I’m not even Shia, so that insult doesn’t fit.
Second, the way you’re talking is itself extremist and kinda dictatorial. When you start labeling a whole nation and blaming everyone, you’re really no different from the regime you say you hate.

And come on ! when you say “the majority of people,” you’re obviously pretending to speak for everyone. Better just have the guts to say your own opinion instead of hiding behind “the people.” (But yeah, clearly you don’t have that guts — otherwise you’d at least put a real name on your profile :) )

In the end, extremism is bad on both sides. You’ve just fallen off the edge the other way.
بچه تروریست توخالی ! :)

First, Speak on behalf of people means I claim that im representative of them, i never said im representative of these terrorists.

Second, you want me to reveal my identity in a nation full of terrorists, im sure you will be glad the regime find and torture me.

Third, you learned some things in Instagram and social media and you think they are the only facts in the world. Exterimism freed the U.S. from britain. As franklin said freedom comes when good people have the will to do horrible things to bad people. Mullahs dont fall by giving them flower. This is what you dont understand and your blood will be wasted even if you want freedom.
Most Iranians are mullahs supporter or just like you a useful idiot that want to overthrown these thugs woth kissing and flower

In 1953, a CIA-backed coup overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister. This has contributed in destroying its democratic trajectory.

Democracy, the UN, world peace, international rules, just illusions crafted by those in power to keep power.
How can nations preach equality and peace while the veto exists?
If you still can’t see it after these years, you’re either a propaganda bot, a racist, or someone who’s lost the ability to think critically.

Can't be happier I got another citizenship so I don't have to deal with this BS anymore.

Interesting writeup

Permanent firewall-penetrating encrypted proxy, my friend, and never explicitly mention your heritage. This is how it is for many.