Official: Syria In Trouble Because of Broad Band

Rooz Online

Fears that Facebook and Viber social networks, and possibly others, would be banned or at the least curtailed materialize last week in Tehran when the country’s right-wing attorney general Mohseni Ejei gave a month’s deadline to Hassan Rouhani administration’s minister of telecommunications to stop access to social networks, including Facebook and Viber. Earlier, a posted tweet that appeared to be insulting the founder of the Islamic regime was speculated to be the work of the regime itself to create the pretext for formally attacking virtual social networks.

Many political observers believe that pressure on the social networks in Iran is because the security agencies of the regime are concerned about youth crowds in large cities. Government officials have openly warned that any protest group had the ability to rapidly turn something into a major international issue.

Last week, the first deputy of the judiciary branch of Iran’s government wrote an open public letter to the minister of telecommunications in which he said, “In view of the wide publication of criminal content in some virtual social networks such as Whatsapp, Tango and Viber, in recent weeks against Islamic ethics and public safety, including insulting messages against the founder of the Islamic revolution ayatollah Khomeini which are possibly organized and directed technically by governments inimical to the Islamic republic, immediate measures should be taken to block the said sites within a month in pursuit of the orders by the head of the judiciary ayatollah Amoli. Otherwise, the judiciary will take action to implement the law to block access to social networks that have criminal content.”

This letter comes just a few days after the minister of telecommunications publicly challenged those who have been calling for greater control of all internet access by announcing, “Do not create a futile (negative) atmosphere, Viber will not be blocked.”

As this letter by Ejei was published, a website owned by the Revolutionary Guards in Shiraz announced the arrest of a number of users of social networks on charges of posting jokes against the founder of the regime ayatollah Khomeini.

The story on the site quoted an official to have said, “Satellite receivers were found in the homes of all those arrested and we ask all parents to increase their control and supervision of their children’s activities on the internet and social networks.”

Last week, a senior police officer had warned that all communications on the social networks were under surveillance. Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, the head of the Cyber and Information Exchange Police (FETA) had said, “… unfortunately many people and especially women, trust these social networks which at times have created problems for them. Formal complaints have been filed against violators. The police is capable of monitoring Viber and social networks. Be aware that FETA has the ability to monitor these networks.” Hossein Ashtari, the deputy commander of Iran’s police force echoed these words and said, “leads had been obtained for the insulting messages in blogosphere.”

But the remarks of another official have caught the attention of observers even more. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards last week said on the sidelines of an anti satellite and internet seminar, “The current situation in Syria is an indication of the use of satellite.”

After influential ayatollah Makarem Shirazi issued a fatwa on the need for high-speed mobile Internet. A wave of jokes and messages ridiculing ayatollah Khomeini appeared in Iran’s blogosphere and particularly in Viber, an application that allows users to send text messages and make telephone calls for free to other Viber users. The extent and nature of these messages raised speculations that these were in fact sent by government agents to create the ground work to initiate measures to curtail them.