Eight Telegram Channel Managers Arrested in Kerman Province

The public prosecutor of Kerman Province announced the arrest of eight managers of Telegram channels in the province and stated that 27 individuals identified as "key and central agents" of recent street protests in Kerman are also in custody. Dadkhoda Salari described the street protests in the province as "riots" and added that "extraordinary technical and supplementary investigations are ongoing to uncover the roots of the issue." Mr. Salari did not provide details on the nature of these "technical investigations" but mentioned that currently, "27 key agents of the recent riots are in custody." This judicial official stated that "the main perpetrators of the recent incidents will be dealt with decisively and without leniency," identifying the virtual space as the "most important platform" for these protests. According to him, "through technical actions and monitoring conducted by intelligence, security, and law enforcement forces, eight social media channel managers who were inciting rebellion were arrested in the early hours in several cities of the province." The public prosecutor of Kerman stated that these individuals were "mainly using pseudonyms to create channels with the intent to incite chaos." Salari further claimed that "all their illegal activities aimed at destabilizing society were conducted through Telegram channels." He also asserted that "the fingerprints of espionage services of imperialism in the recent events are clear and evident." The popular messaging app Telegram in Iran was blocked shortly after the recent street protests spread across various cities in the country, alongside the social network Instagram. Judicial officials of the Islamic Republic have long called for the blocking of Telegram, but government officials have repeatedly stated that the government does not support the blocking of this communication tool. Ahmad Khatami, the interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran, emphasized that with the filtering of social networks, including Telegram, protest gatherings have "subsided," criticizing government officials' statements regarding the potential lifting of the filter on this messaging app. Naser Makarem Shirazi, a cleric residing in Qom, also called social networks a "danger to the revolution, the system, and the security of society" and stated that one should not say that these networks were "temporarily cut off and will return again." Disruptions in user access to the internet and the filtering of websites and messaging apps in Iran have faced international criticism. For instance, Reporters Without Borders, an organization defending freedom of expression and the media, described the recent internet restrictions in Iran as "suppressing the freedom of information and the right of the people to know." Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, despite previous promises that the blocking of social networks was temporary, announced that "the continued operation of Telegram in Iran is contingent upon the removal of terrorist content." Mr. Jahromi did not specify what "terrorist" content he was referring to. In this context, there has been a "serious loss" to hundreds of thousands of internet vendors due to the filtering of Telegram and Instagram.