Judiciary Spokesman: Website Filtering Not Related to Municipality Case

Despite reports about the filtering of several websites and the arrest of the editor-in-chief of ArchitecNews due to reports on violations in the transfer of Tehran municipality properties, the spokesman for the judiciary stated that the filtering of these websites "was not related to the municipality." According to the news agency Mizan, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Sunday, September 28, that the judicial pursuit of some "media figures" and the filtering of certain websites had nothing to do with the issue of the transfer of municipality properties in Tehran. He emphasized that the filtering of the Wave news agency was also unrelated to the municipality issue and that this news agency "had a private complainant." The judiciary spokesman also announced that a committee appointed by the Attorney General is responsible for investigating the transfer of municipality properties in Tehran and that "if any wrongdoing has occurred in the municipality, rest assured that there will be no leniency." He added, "If during this matter a media outlet wants to intervene and commit an offense, it is not right." Yashar Soltani, the editor-in-chief of ArchitecNews, who was summoned due to the publication of reports on the transfer of municipality properties, was arrested on Saturday, September 27, after failing to provide a bail of 200 million tomans. Mr. Soltani's lawyer reported that the municipality and the chairman of the Tehran City Council had filed a complaint against his client, but the Tehran municipality denied these statements on Sunday, stating that "it had not requested the arrest of anyone." On September 14, the Iranian judiciary had also blocked two news agencies, Wave and Borna, along with several news websites, including Pouyesh, 9 Sobhe, and Persian Khodro, due to "complaints in judicial authorities." In this regard, Mohammad Mobin, the CEO of Borna news agency, reported that the media prosecutor cited the publication of statements by Gholamreza Ansari, a member of the Tehran City Council, regarding the transfer of municipality properties as the reason for blocking this news agency. The Borna news agency was unblocked on September 20, but the other filtered websites remain blocked. The Iranian judiciary's "dual approach" and the principlists' handling of the issue of salary slips and the transfer of municipality properties have been criticized by some political figures. For instance, Ahmad Masjed Jamei, a member of the Tehran City Council, stated on September 12 that websites that "heavily accused the government under the pretext of salary slips" were not filtered, and the filtering of ArchitecNews would be interpreted by public opinion as a "dual approach to a problem." However, Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Iranian judiciary, rejected the claim of a "dual approach" by this institution regarding the issues of "astronomical salaries and the municipality case," stating that "foreign counter-revolutionaries are constantly trying to convey that everyone in the Islamic Republic is corrupt and a thief." In this context, the spokesman for the Iranian judiciary claimed that "during the astronomical salaries issue, some individuals who wrote outside the law have been prosecuted." He also added that "the publication of these slips is not a crime as long as they are not classified and do not harm the dignity of the individual. However, part of the published information is considered private matters of individuals." Mr. Ejei did not mention the names of publications that, according to him, have been prosecuted for publishing reports about the salary slips of government officials, and no report has been published on this matter so far.