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Eleven Iranians who have been accused of sending insulting texts about Islamic republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were arrested in the province of Shiraz on Monday.
“After monitoring social network applications on mobile phones like WhatsApp, Viber, Line and Tango… 11 people were arrested”, General Esmail Mohebipour, the provincial Revolutionary Guards chief”, said.
“They recognized the error of their ways”, Iranian daily Haft e-Sobh quoted him saying.
On Saturday, the Iranian judiciary had issued a one-month notice period for the government to ban social networking apps like Whatsapp, Viper, Tango and Line, in a move which would boost the already strict internet restrictions in the country. The ultimatum came after several messages criticizing Khomeini on such apps came to light.
According to local media reports, similar messages were sent about current the Iranian government officials, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“We firmly believe that criminal content on social networks must be blocked, but banning these networks is another story”, Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi was quoted by an Iranian news outlet as saying. He also said that the ministry’s engineers were working on methods to remove the “criminal” content.
A spokesman for the Iranian judiciary confirmed that “the Ministry of Telecommunications is working on the question”.
“If we can establish a technical way in which people can use these services while at the same time criminal content is filtered out, then that will be done. The experts say it is possible”, he said.
Iran has a filtered internet policy, with popular website like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook only accessible through the use of illegal software. Currently, internet censorship is a very contentious issue among government officials who use social networks, including President Hassan Rouhani, and conservative hardliners. According to official figures, over 30 million Iranians use such applications.