Continued Judicial Actions Against Social Media Activists; A Female Instagram Activist Arrested in Isfahan

The Intelligence Organization of the Isfahan Police Command announced the arrest of a female blogger active on the Instagram social network, who has been handed over to the relevant authorities. The statement released indicated that her arrest was part of the "crackdown on norm violators active in cyberspace" and was based on the accusation of "publishing vulgar and obscene content." Officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have introduced mandatory hijab and restrictions on social freedoms as "norms" and punish any resistance in these areas under the pretext of "norm violation." As of the time of this report, no details have been released regarding the identity of this female blogger or the nature of her activities on Instagram. So far, hundreds of social media activists and dozens of Instagram pages belonging to small businesses, including hairdressing, have faced judicial actions with similar accusations, and in some cases, these pages have been blocked. Recently, the French news agency reported on the closure of several Instagram business accounts in Iran due to "non-compliance with hijab and Islamic decorum" or "publishing content contrary to public morals and decency." In January of this year, the police chief of Bushehr province, Haidar Sossani, reported actions against 27 Instagram pages related to hairdressing and 27 "norm-violating" hairdressers in Bushehr. The police chief of Mazandaran, Hassan Mofakhami Shahrak, also reported in November the identification and action against 302 social media users, claiming that these individuals were involved in "promoting and disseminating immorality and unethical behaviors such as hijab violations, indecent displays, vulgar modeling, and immoral live broadcasts" in cyberspace. According to this police official, 71 of the accused faced judicial actions, account blocking, and warnings. In the latest report from "Freedom House," the Iranian government was identified as one of the violators of freedom in the past year, and Iran continues to be recognized as a "non-free" country in terms of freedom index. While the Iranian government has banned public access to Facebook and Instagram in the country, the blocking of Ali Khamenei's pages on these two social networks, recently carried out by Meta, has been criticized by the Iranian Foreign Minister. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian described Meta's decision as a "violation of freedom of expression, insulting, unethical, and illegal," and called it a "sign of the collapse of ethics and the decline of moral systems in the world."