Several Photographers Arrested in Shiraz for Publishing 'Obscene Photos'

An official from the judiciary of the Islamic Republic announced that several photographers in the city of Shiraz have been arrested on charges of publishing 'obscene photos' and 'modeling photos' on their Instagram pages. According to the official IRNA news agency, Ali Salehi, the prosecutor of Shiraz, reported on Saturday, October 13, the arrest of a number of photographers in the city for posting what he described as 'inappropriate' photos on their Instagram pages. He also stated that the Instagram accounts of these individuals have been blocked due to 'encouraging people to corruption and prostitution.' The Shiraz prosecutor did not specify how many photographers were arrested. Meanwhile, IRNA reported that these photographers had published 'modeling photos.' According to the report, since late last week, the Instagram accounts of some Shirazi photographers had been filtered. Some users whose accounts were filtered told IRNA that they had not been involved in modeling and had only published 'one or two photos' of men 'through friendship with them.' In recent years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched a project on social media, especially Instagram, called 'Spider Project 2,' and hundreds of people in several provinces of Iran have been arrested on charges of modeling activities. Meanwhile, in 2016, Branch 117 of the Criminal Court of Shiraz sentenced 12 defendants in a 'modeling' case in the city to a total of 379 months in prison, a ban on leaving the country, and deprivation of employment in certain jobs. The head of the Cyber Police also reported in May that this force had reviewed 51,000 'obscene and vulgar' pages on Instagram and was working to identify their operators. The Iranian judiciary has established a deputy office in the Attorney General's Office to deal with cyberspace. On Saturday, Javad Javadnia was introduced as the new deputy for cyberspace affairs in the Attorney General's Office. Abdol-Samad Khorram-Abadi, the former deputy, was appointed as the new deputy for oversight of the prosecutor's office. Mr. Javadnia was previously the former deputy prosecutor of Mashhad in cyberspace affairs.