Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
The Tehran prosecutor order on blocking mobile social networks applications including WhatsApp remains in effect, the prosecutor of Tehran Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said.
The order on blocking the applications is not lifted and the relevant organizations should respect that, Jafari Dolatabadi said, Iran 's Fars news agency reported Jan. 15.
The official also rejected reports that the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and head of the Judiciary, Sadeq Amoli Larijani have agreed to suspend the issue for a while.
Earlier Iranian Minister of Justice Mostafa Pourmohammadi said that the issue of banning access to WhatsApp, Line, and Tango was already discussed in the Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content but there are no plans to block the social networks currently.
The government does not intend to impose limitations, however it is committed to moral issues, the minister said.
Earlier on Jan. 7, Iranian media outlets reported that the judiciary has ordered the Iranian government to block access to WhatsApp, Line, and Tango because the services can be used to share "immoral" content. They reported that the apps will be blocked in the new future.
The judiciary has been trying to get Iran 's government to block access to these services since September 2014.
Earlier in October 2014 in response to a final order by the judiciary to close down mobile messaging services such as WhatsApp, Viber and Tango, the country's Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said that it would have no effect.
"Our technical studies indicate that the number of social networks such as WhatsApp, Viber and Tango is so numerous that shutting them down is not the solution."
About 4.5 to 5 million of Iranian citizens use WhatsApp and Viber.
It should be noted that several of world's most popular networks, such as Twitter and Facebook are banned in Iran , while users are still able to access them via proxies. A proxy allows bypassing 'gates' meant to block certain sites.
A survey by Iranian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports indicates that 69.3 percent of the country's young generation use proxy servers to by-pass the filters and access banned Internet websites.
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