Human Rights Campaign: Iran's Agreement with Telegram Aims to Limit Users

The International Human Rights Campaign in Iran, citing an anonymous 'informed source', announced that Telegram will soon establish some of its servers within Iran following 'negotiations' with officials of the Islamic Republic. This human rights organization stated on Friday, September 6, on its website that after a request from Iran's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, access for Iranian users to 'some of the bots' of this application has been 'blocked' since Sunday, September 1. According to the International Human Rights Campaign in Iran, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology requested 'to impose restrictions' on Iranian users' access to 'certain applications' of this messaging app about six weeks ago in a letter to Telegram. The campaign's website also quoted an anonymous 'informed source' stating that Telegram, based on 'negotiations' it has had with Iranian officials, will 'soon establish some of its servers to improve speed and services for Iranian users within the country.' In recent months, access to the Telegram mobile social network in Iran has faced disruptions, and rumors of its blockage have also emerged. Meanwhile, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported on Sunday, June 28, that Iranian Telegram users initially had the ability to send even video files in 'a few seconds', but in 'recent months', some users have reported 'serious disruptions' in using this software. Two days after this report, Mahmoud Vaezi, the Minister of Communications, called the 'restriction or filtering' of this mobile network by the ministry a 'rumor' that 'is not true at all'. The day after that, Mahmoud Khosravi, the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, stated, 'We sent an official letter to Telegram and said that your network has problems in Iran; let’s sit down and solve the issues.' Meanwhile, the International Human Rights Campaign in Iran urged Telegram and other companies planning to open offices and transfer their technical facilities to Iran to publish 'transparency reports' regularly and periodically to assure Iranian users about 'transparency and the protection of their rights'. The campaign also urged these companies to 'avoid jeopardizing the privacy of Iranian users by providing their communications to Iranian authorities' and to assure these users that 'their information will not be provided to security and law enforcement agencies'. According to the campaign's website, the Telegram application is very popular among Iranian users, including human rights activists and civil activists, due to its 'adequate security'. After the problems that arose for the Viber application, Telegram has become one of the most common communication software in Iran, where many groups have also been created by Iranian users in addition to personal communications. Since the beginning of Hassan Rouhani's government, the debate over people's access to social networks has intensified. Meanwhile, Iranian Ministry of Communications officials have announced in recent months the implementation of a 'smart filtering' plan, under which access to no website is completely restricted, but part of the content of the site identified by this software will be inaccessible to Iranian users.