{"id":1262,"date":"2018-05-01T12:51:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T12:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1262"},"modified":"2018-05-01T12:51:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T12:51:48","slug":"in-a-desperate-move-to-squash-internet-freedom-iran-blocks-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1262","title":{"rendered":"In a Desperate Move to Squash Internet Freedom, Iran Blocks Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ban Unlikely to Stop Most of Telegram\u2019s 40 Million Users in Iran<\/p><\/div>\n

May 1, 2018–The Iranian Judiciary has ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to the country\u2019s most used messaging app,\u00a0Telegram, in an attempt to thwart an estimated 40 million Iranians\u2019 open access to information.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIran\u2019s blocking of Telegram is another example of the state\u2019s blatant hostility toward freedom of speech and a futile attempt to block the free flow of information,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the\u00a0Center for Human Rights in Iran\u00a0(CHRI).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe condemnation of Iran\u2019s violations of these basic rights is an international imperative, as is the need to make the full range of personal communications and circumvention tools available to the people of Iran,\u201d added Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

On April 30, 2018, the Iranian Judiciary\u2019s news site reported that Branch 2 of the Culture and Media Prosecutor\u2019s Office in Tehran had\u00a0ordered\u00a0all ISPs and the Telecommunications Ministry, which operates under President Hassan Rouhani, to \u201cprevent access to content on the [Telegram] network with any kind of software, including circumvention tools.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The order\u00a0warned\u00a0that any providers in violation would be prosecuted.<\/span><\/p>\n

As of the early morning hours of May 1 in Iran, Telegram was only accessible via online circumvention tools in most provinces throughout the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The order to block Telegram came after months of\u00a0unsuccessful pressure\u00a0on the company by the Iranian Judiciary and state officials to move its servers to Iran and comply with Iranian censorship policies. Hostility to Telegram also increased after the messaging app was used by many of the protestors during the unrest that broke out across Iran in December 2017 to spread word of the street gatherings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The move also reflects a desire by hardliners to demonstrate their domestic dominance\u2014and Rouhani\u2019s powerlessness to stop the bans on social media that he publicly states he opposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBlocking Telegram is a victory for hardliners who humiliated Rouhani in front of the millions of voters he promised over and over again that he would not allow messaging apps like Telegram to be blocked,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Telegram ban follows successive moves by the authorities during April to erode use of the app in Iran. The Ministry of Education issued a\u00a0directive\u00a0banning the use of foreign-made messaging apps at public schools, all executive branch agencies were ordered to\u00a0stop using foreign messaging apps for official business, and Iran\u2019s Supreme Cyberspace Council (SCC)\u00a0ordered\u00a0Telegram removed from Iran\u2019s CDNs, (caching\u00a0servers\u00a0that\u00a0allow\u00a0faster\u00a0delivery\u00a0of\u00a0multimedia\u00a0data).<\/span><\/p>\n

With Telegram now completely banned, the authorities hope Iranians will use domestic messaging apps instead, but the citizenry have showed little appetite for\u00a0domestic versions\u00a0which they know the state can access and monitor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe state\u2019s routine violation of privacy rights via covert state surveillance of online communications has created a culture of deep-seated distrust for state-approved apps,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

On December 31, 2017, Telegram was blocked for\u00a0two weeks\u00a0during the\u00a0nationwide protests. But instead of flocking to domestic messaging apps, \u201c30 million\u201d people used circumvention tools\u2014such as virtual private networks (VPNs) that enable users to access blocked sites\u2014to continue to use Telegram, according to Member of Parliament (MP) Mahmoud Sadeghi.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Rouhani\u00a0said\u00a0at the time that more than 100,000 people had lost their jobs as a result of the ban, reflecting the extent to which Telegram has become deeply embedded in the social and economic fabric of the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook and Twitter are also banned in Iran. Despite this, dozens of state officials use these apps to reach domestic and foreign audiences, sometimes maintaining accounts in multiple languages including English, Farsi and Arabic. Iranians meanwhile, use online circumvention tools to access the apps. However, no social media platform has achieved the reach of Telegram in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIran is a country filled with young, tech savvy people who have proven that they won\u2019t be silenced or subdued by state bans on anything,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing Iran has achieved by blocking Telegram is revealing its fear of its own people being able to freely access information and communicate,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

For interviews, contact:<\/span>
\n Hadi Ghaemi<\/span>
\n +1-917-669-5996<\/span>
\n hadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit our website:\u00a0www.iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 1, 2018–The Iranian Judiciary has ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to the country\u2019s most used messaging app,\u00a0Telegram, in an attempt to thwart an estimated 40 million<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[377],"class_list":["post-1262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-telegram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}