NCRI – On Sunday, the Iranian regime’s communications minister, Mahmoud Vaezi announced that he would dissolve “the Supreme Council of Information Technology”. He was bowing down to the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who a day earlier had demanded the dissolution of all institutions controlling the cyber space in order for the controlling organ under his command to become the main power of repression.
In a directive on September 5, Khamenei appointed new members of the “Supreme Cyberspace Council” and ordered parallel institutions to be shut down. Iran analysts say his decision was made to increase filtering and censorship in social networks and tracking emails.
Khamenei said the re-vamped council should “purify the cyberspace ” and “effectively confront the influence and encroachment of foreigners.”
Here are just some of the many institutions controlling virtual space under the mullahs’ rule in Iran:
- Committee to fight computer crimes
- Committee to determine instances of unauthorized websites
- Supreme Security Council of information exchange space (AFTA)
- Special branch of computer and internet crimes in the Tehran prosecutor’s office
- Filtering Committee of the Judiciary
- News Information Technology Company
- Bassij Cyber Council
- Iranian Revolutionary Guards command for cyberspace
- Cyber Army
- Sunshine Army
- The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Centre for investigating organized crimes
- Deputy Minister of Information Technology
Now, with Khamenei’s support for the “Supreme Cyberspace Council”, all other such high bodies will be dominated by this council whose members are mostly Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commanders and officials from the security forces.
The council, in turn, is under the command of IRGC Intelligence, which is overseen by Khamenei’s office.
Khamenei said in his statement the council “must be above government branches.”
The Iranian regime’s officials have also tried to slow down the speed of the Internet or to limit access on various occasions including when uprisings take place. They also consider the activities of the regime’s opponents in the cyberspace as a “soft war with the regime” and an “attempt to overthrow the regime.”
In early 2010 officials of the Iranian regime’s police said a new “Cyber Police” (or Cyber and Information Exchange Police, FETA) has been launched with the aim of “combating cyber crimes.”
The Cyber Police quickly used violent methods to carry out cyber repression. Sattar Beheshti, a blogger, was killed under torture.
The Iranian regime’s President, mullah Hassan Rouhani, has made a lot of efforts to control the Internet in turn. His communications minister, Mahmoud Vaezi, recently said that a plan had been prepared under which the identity of all Internet users in Iran would be registered and no one would be able to use the Internet anonymously.
Meanwhile, Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia announced that since last March more than 270 Internet cafes in Tehran have been shut down and hundreds of other Internet cafes have received notices of closure. [State news agency ISNA, September 6, 2015]
Iran is considered one of the most restrictive countries in the world for Internet freedom. In October 2014, Freedom House, an organization that monitors civil liberties in the world, said a study of the state of Internet freedom in 60 countries showed Iran was in last place.
