Iran's president says internet controls must go

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has launched a series of outspoken attacks on the country’s hardline security forces after being angered that one of his addresses on freedom of speech was taken off the air at the behest of his rivals.

The reformist president was elected last year on a platform of easing state meddling in private lives but a major speech to a national internet festival on Saturday was unceremoniously removed from the airwaves.

Mr Rouhani responded with a blizzard of messages mocking attempts to control access to the internet, social media and satellite television channels.

Aides close to the president blamed Ezzatollah Zargham, director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, for handing down the order to ban the broadcast.

Mr Rouhani said censorship was damaging the Iranian economy and driving the best educated and wealthiest abroad.

“We must all enter the scene to help our country and should not be afraid of others telling us what are you're here for,” he said in one tweet. “To end our isolation in the world means our elite should be involved in world’s industrial and technological projects.”

He added it was a right of all Iranians to access the internet and deal with government through electronic platforms. “ This country will not progress or overcome its problems by slogans and rhetoric,” he said in another swipe at the ideologues who oppose his reform agenda.

However Javan Daily, a news site controlled by the Guards, said the president was condoning the widespread use of websites for sex or dating. One of its top commanders made claims that the president’s proposal would open the door to Western influence and other decadent trends.

Massoud Jazayeri, deputy commander of the Guards said: “Under the current government’s cultural and media policies the enemy and its fifth columns in the country have once again become active and are plotting another sedition through their liberal and anti-religious propaganda which aims to overthrow our Islamic system.”

The Iranian leader has been under pressure from hardline factions over his efforts to strike a deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the removal of UN sanctions on the economy.

Mr Rouhani further emphasised his point by joining the social messaging site CLOOB.com and the video sharing site, Aparat.com.