Rohani: We Have No Right to Interfere in People's Private Lives

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, has opposed government interference in the 'private lives of people' and added that one cannot shut down communication tools on the pretext of 'abuse'. According to a report on Tuesday (April 16) by the IRNA news agency, Mr. Rouhani made these remarks during a meeting with the Minister, deputies, and senior managers of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Rouhani stated, 'We have no right to interfere in people's private lives. The most important principle is trust, and people must trust us.' He added, 'God forbid, if people consider a foreign social network trustworthy and rely on it but do not trust a domestic network, we must not allow such an event to happen.' The President told officials at the Ministry of Communications that they are the 'trustees' of citizens and must understand that listening to 'people's conversations' is in fact 'betrayal of trust'. Rouhani emphasized that in today's world, 'communication tools are an inseparable part of life', criticizing those who, under the pretext of 'the possibility of abuse', say 'no' to everything. He stated, 'If science has been abused, we cannot say it should be shut down, just as if an insult or wrongdoing has occurred in a written work, we cannot say all pens should be broken.' According to Rouhani, 'A knife may have cut someone's hand, but we cannot collect all knives because life would be disrupted. Some individuals have the tool of saying no to everything.' He noted that if a subject is monopolized by an institution, 'it creates problems.' In another part of his remarks, Rouhani stated that 'the current space after the JCPOA should be utilized and exploited', emphasizing the attraction of domestic investment in the post-JCPOA era and the development of the IT and ICT industries. He indirectly expressed his opposition to 'monopoly', adding that 'any subject, science, or knowledge that is monopolized encounters problems.' He considered 'progress' to be contingent on 'healthy competition' and continued, 'If a subject is monopolized by the government or an institution, it creates problems.' Rouhani addressed the managers of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, saying, 'If there was no competition in the world today, would you provide communication services to the people at the same price? Competition causes you to reduce prices and improve quality.' These remarks by Hassan Rouhani come at a time when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is mentioned as an entity that has monopolized significant sectors of the country's economy, such as construction, energy, and telecommunications. The shares of Iran Telecommunications Company were transferred about five years ago in an unprecedented transaction in the 50-year history of the Iranian stock market, worth 8 trillion tomans, to three subsidiaries of the IRGC in half an hour. The telecommunications company has generated about 40 trillion tomans in revenue over the past five years, and given the IRGC's 51% ownership of this company, this military entity has profited more than the government.