Islamic Republic Police Block 35 Instagram Pages for 'Promoting Western Lifestyle'

The police command unit related to 'Information Production and Exchange Space', abbreviated as 'FATA', announced that it has blocked 35 Instagram pages in Isfahan due to what it called 'promoting a Western lifestyle'. According to the Iran Watch website, Mustafa Mortezavi, head of FATA in Isfahan, announced on June 2 that these Instagram pages were blocked for 'publishing and uploading' images that he described as 'vulgar and inappropriate modeling advertisements' and claimed they 'attempted to deceive the youth'. According to this police official, the average number of visits to these 35 Instagram pages was '70,000 people', and FATA 'deleted the content of these pages and blocked them' while introducing the operators of these accounts to 'judicial authorities' under 'judicial order'. Mustafa Mortezavi claimed that 'all activities' of those labeled as 'social deviants in cyberspace' are 'under police control', and those who operate 'outside the norm' will be 'dealt with'. The ongoing crackdown on citizens' activities on social media by Islamic Republic officials occurs despite the fact that there is no crime defined as 'promoting a Western lifestyle' under current Iranian laws, although according to Article 742 of the Computer Crimes Law, the publication of 'vulgar and obscene images' on social media is criminalized. The legal advisory group Dadban emphasized that 'the use of such terms is explicitly aimed at imposing maximum ideology and silencing any different lifestyle, especially limiting individual freedoms'. Based on this legal analysis, 'the publication of modeling images does not in any way constitute vulgar and obscene images, and the legislator's intention regarding vulgar images refers to sexual and pornographic images, not modeling images.' Islamic Republic officials have introduced mandatory hijab and government prohibitions in the realm of individual and social freedoms, especially for women in Iran, as 'norms' and punish those who do not comply under the pretext of 'norm-breaking' or 'immoral and vulgar content'. In recent months, dozens of Instagram pages have been blocked by Iranian security agencies on similar charges, and their operators have been summoned under titles such as 'anti-cultural promoters'. Previously, the police chief of Shahroud announced that 56 Instagram pages in that city had been blocked, and their owners were introduced to judicial authorities. Additionally, the Cyber Center of the Zanjan Police Information Organization accused the operators of six Instagram pages active in women's beauty salons and bridal dress boutiques of 'publishing norm-breaking images' and referred them to judicial authorities. The increase in crackdowns on active citizens in social media has occurred after a police official from the Islamic Republic announced the entry of the 'Public Security Police' into cyberspace 'in line with the implementation of the Noor plan'.