Special police force to control cell phones in Iran
Staff Writer
AKI, Tehran, January 4 – A special police corps has been formed officially to check the cell phones in Iran. In the past few days plain-clothes officials have started stopping passers-by in Iran’s main cities to inspect their mobiles. All text messages and audio or video files which are considered ‘illegal’ are erased by agents of this new corps. In the past few years, cell phones have reportedly become the main tool to convey news which would never make it into the government-controlled Iranian media.
News on scandals, jokes on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other political leaders, information on meetings, political assemblies and rallies mainly circulate via cell phones.
The crackdown on mobile phones follows measures in the past year to ban satellite television in Iranian homes, filter over 100,000 internet websites and close the last daily considered relatively independent, Shargh.
