Two Vice Presidents of Parliament Protest to Judiciary Over Arrests and Filtering

Ali Motahari and Masoud Pezeshkian, two vice presidents of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, protested to the judiciary on Wednesday, April 30, regarding the blocking of the voice call option on Telegram and the continued detention of Telegram administrators. According to the House of Nation news agency, Ali Motahari, the second vice president of Parliament, deemed the judiciary's intervention in blocking Telegram's voice calls unjustifiable, stating that 'this judiciary should intervene only where a crime has occurred, thus the officials of this body should explain their recent actions.' Two days after the activation of the voice call feature on the popular Telegram app in Iran, this capability was blocked on Friday, April 25, by judicial order. Motahari emphasized that 'only the working group for determining the instances of criminal content should decide on filtering social networks and related features through a voting process, so the direct intervention of the judiciary in this matter is not correct.' Previously, the judiciary's efforts to completely block Telegram had failed due to the lack of government support for this action. In sessions held by the working group for determining instances of criminal content regarding the filtering of Telegram, this action did not receive a vote. The Attorney General, the head of the Broadcasting Organization, the Minister of Intelligence, the Minister of Culture, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, the Minister of Science, Research and Technology, the Minister of Education (or their representatives), the commander of the police force, an expert in information and communication technology selected by the Industries and Mines Commission of Parliament, a representative from the Judicial and Legal Commission selected by this commission with Parliament's approval, the head of the Organization of Advertising, and a representative from the Secretariat of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution are members of the working group for determining instances of criminal content. Motahari also stated that filtering Telegram's voice calls was due to 'a decrease in the income of domestic operators,' but the detention of the managers of 'several Telegram channels definitely has an electoral aspect that the judiciary has not yet adequately addressed.' In this regard, Masoud Pezeshkian, the first vice president of Parliament, also criticized the arrest of Telegram managers on Wednesday and called for accountability from judiciary officials. The representative from Tabriz stated, 'It is not right that we do not give a warning and suddenly close 12 channels, not allowing anyone to see these individuals and not clarifying how and why they should be tried.' The first vice president of Parliament said that Parliament is pursuing these arrests and a meeting on this issue is planned. Last Esfand, the managers of several Telegram channels and a number of journalists, including Hengameh Shahidi, Ehsan Mazandarani, Ramin Karimian, and Morad Saghafi, a researcher, were arrested, and some of them are still in detention. In this context, on Wednesday, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesman for the judiciary, expressed surprise at the continued activity of channels whose administrators are in detention. According to the Tasnim news agency, the spokesman for the judiciary considered the renewed activity of several reformist Telegram channels just hours after the arrest of their managers as a sign of their 'organized' activity. Mohseni Ejei posed the question, 'Who has done this?' addressing these judicial managers, stating that 'it is possible that in the future we will also face sedition and corruption, and you should not back down.' In recent years, the arrest of journalists and media activists of reformists has become common before and after elections. The peak of these arrests occurred during the 2009 elections when a large number of journalists were detained. The deputy head of the judiciary added that 'the fight against corruption certainly has costs, and one of these costs is putting pressure on the judiciary.' The mass arrest of managers of reformist and pro-government channels on Telegram faced opposition from the Ministry of Intelligence and senior officials of the eleventh government, and it seems that Mohseni Ejei also considered these oppositions as pressure on the judiciary. Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, recently stated in a press conference that according to the report of the Ministry of Intelligence, the managers of the Telegram channels who were recently arrested 'did not commit a crime.' Rouhani also asked the Minister of Interior on April 6 to prepare a report on the 'suspicious' arrests of several media activists before the elections and to prevent the 'illegal' interference of some institutions in the elections.