Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 13
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
An Iranian court has issued a verdict on lifting ban on certain websites which were already filtered by the country's culture ministry.
Muosa Ghorbani, a senior judiciary official said the verdict reads that the culture ministry is not allowed to filter any website before the issue is investigated by the judiciary, Iran's Asriran news portal reported Oct. 13.
Early in September the culture ministry said that it will shut down news websites operating without a license. The action was criticized by the Iranian conservatives, saying the ministry targeted only conservative websites.
They accused the culture ministry of enforcing licensing requirements only for conservative news sites, ignoring reformist and pro-administration media outlets.
In Iran, according to the local media laws, all websites should be registered by the Culture Ministry. If the website passes the registration, it is given a license for functioning online.
Hossein Entezami, deputy culture minister for media affairs said earlier in October that over 5,000 websites in Iran are operating without licenses.
Entezami said that more than 230 news agencies and websites in Iran are operating with licenses and that the culture ministry would deal with those applying for licenses for the first time "without prejudice."