NCRI – The spokesman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s Parliament stated that the Ministry of Intelligence has firm plans for the cyber security and filtering.
On December 24th 2016, Naghavi Hosseini announced that the committee will hold a meeting with the officials and Deputy of the Ministry of Intelligence to discuss and review budget plans as well as the credits of the security organizations. In addition to that, the issue of cyber security and filtering will be discussed with the officials of the Ministry of Intelligence as well. As he claimed, the Ministry of Intelligence plans to investigate cyberspace since the infrastructure and primary industries are gravely threatened with this factor, therefore, they require support. The threats posed by cyberspace endanger the infrastructure and primary industries. While the remarks of Naghavi Hosseini are not clear regarding the nature of those threats, Ali Khamenei stressed that the strategic warning would be the penetration of enemies in the country.
Shortly after the meeting, Police Spokesman Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi reiterated that 300 Instagram and Telegram channels were identified and disrupted. About a month ago, the Attorney-General of Iran, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said:”the enemy has used the cyberspace to harm religion and the culture of the society. They have embarked a soft war with us by preparing an ambush to attack the sanctities of the country and we shall stand against it. The Iranian Cyber Police (FATA) inevitably filters 13 to 14 thousand criminal cyber channels weekly.”
About two weeks ago, the media reported that several administrators of Telegram channels in Iran were summoned and interrogated as well. Meanwhile, the police announced that the Telegram channels that have more than 5 thousand followers must obtain an official permit for their activities.
The head of Mashhad’s court announced that 6 members of a modeling channel were arrested and 17 people were summoned to court three months ago. Moreover, the information Website of Fars Province affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced that they have increased security arrangements on the cyberspace in order to prevent corruption and the influence of enemies.
Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi on 20th June 2016 stated that 17 people who were involved in criminal social networks activities were arrested.
According to the reports, there are currently more than 40 million Iranians that use smartphones and at least 30 millions of those use the services of foreign social networks as well as messaging. It seems that the upcoming presidential election of the Iranian regime is the main reason of tightening supervision on social networks by the judicial and security institutions.