Curb Your Vulgarity
Kish Island’s FATA (Cyber Police) Chief reported on the arrest of an individual accused of managing a page on an unspecified social networking website promoting ‘lewdness’ and ‘evil doings’.
On this topic, FATA reminded users that:
“Based on Article 21 of the Computer Crimes Law, distribution, publication and trade of content against public chastity (vulgar and obscene), and content which provokes, encourages or invites corruption and lechery, leads to committing unchaste or sexually deviant acts, are considered a crime and the police and their agents will deal with them according to the law.”
Inflated Status
In an interview, Minister of Communications, Reza Taqipour announced the number of internet users inIran to be 34,300,000, placing the country as the leader in theMiddle East region. This is while according to the Statistical Center of Iran, the number of internet users in the country is 14,000,700. Apparently, the significant difference between the two figures can be attributed to the method employed in data collection. The Ministry of Communications and its related agencies use formulas while the Statistical Center of Iran uses door to door surveying to determine the number of internet users in the country. This is not the first time officials have used the Ministry’s statistics.
Mapping Out
Vice President of the Majlis Commission for Industries and Mines condemned Google for eliminating ‘Persian Gulf” from its map feature. He added:
“Decisions like this can be traced back to Zionists and Arab lobbyists, and it is how Google secures its funding.”
Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari further commented that the Majlis will soon release an official announcement on this issue, and:
“If Google continues this behavior, this search engine must be eliminated fromIran’s internet system.”
In a response to a question on the status of Iran’s complaint to Google, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance said:
“This issue is being followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but we also expect the people themselves to react towards the [Google’s] decision.”
Divine Cyber
Iran has set up its first social networking website for Imams, under the name of “Hadi Net” established. www.hadinet.ir, which was developed by the Center for IT and Digital Media of the Ministry of Culture aims to address religious issues with a specific look at subjects related to the religious community. The network is named after the tenth Shi’a imam, Ali al-Naghi, and its official launch is to coincide with the anniversary of his martyrdom. Apparently, similar networks for other imams are under way.
In related news:
The Warriors of Islam Committee called for a ten minute internet black-out on Thursday May 24th, in time with the anniversary of the tenth Shi’a imam’s martyrdom. Mohammad Ghahremani, the Cultural Deputy of the Warriors of Islam Committee said:
“According to our predictions, www.dahomin.ir website has been established which will be visible on all Iranian websites on the night of martyrdom.”
Ghahremani’s comments meant that at a set time on the night of May 24th, all participating websites would be directed to www.dahomin.ir.
The Cultural Deputy added that this was a direct response to the ‘insulting’ song by Germany based Iranian rapper, Shahin Najafi. One of the artist’s newest songs is named after the tenth Imam which has been met with concentrated criticism from religious circles.
At the time of this week’s Iran Cyber Watch, no official comments had been made about the black-out, nor was there any news on whether or not websites participated.
Speeding Up
Alireza Asgharian, an official from the Communications Regulatory Agency commented on high-speed internet ports in the country, stating:
“During 2011-2012, 3,523,813 high-speed internet ports where installed. This led to a 95-percent increase compared to the previous year.”
He added:
“At the moment, ADSL services are provided by twelve operators in over one thousand cities across the country.”
In related news:
At the second annual National ICT Festival, Shatel and Pars Online were chosen as the first and second best ISP companies in Iran, respectively.
“Internet Bandwidth – In Theory and in Practice”
Permission
The Majlis has granted the Ministry of Communications to apply for participation and investment in fiber-optic and other international bandwidth projects.