Middle East
Publisher: Iran Herald
27 Dec 2014
Iran expands ‘smart’ Internet censorship
Iran is to expand what it calls "smart filtering" of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to, the government said on Friday. The Islamic Republic has some of the strictest controls on Internet access in the world, but its blocks on U.S.-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks (VPNs). Under the new scheme, Tehran could lift its blanket ban on those sites and, instead, filter their content.
Publisher: Iran Human Rights
23 Dec 2014
Prison Sentence for Young Facebook User Increased from 15 to 20 Years
A Tehran Revolutionary Court has increased the sentence of a 21-year-old Facebook user from 15 to 20 years in prison for his postings on Facebook. The case was originally appealed in the hope that the severe 15-year sentence would be reduced. However, the appeals court remanded the case to the lower court because one of the charges, insulting the sacred, was not addressed in the original ruling.
Publisher: IBTimes
7 Dec 2014
Iran’s Internet Repression Draws Yet Another Division Between Hardliners And Rouhani Supporters As Arrests Increase
Inmates at Ward 350 of Evin Prison in northwestern Tehran endure brutal conditions, regular beatings, sexual harassment, even torture. The Ward has become home to an increasing number of Iran's most prominent cyberactivists and intellectuals this past year, including Soheil Arabi, a 30-year-old man arrested in 2013 and charged with sabb al-nabbi, or "insulting the Prophet." Arabi's charge stems from a reference to the Prophet Muhammad in a Facebook post. He found out in November his government is going to kill him. The country's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence handed down by a lower court.
Publisher: Jerusalem Post
28 Sep 2014
Barred from social media, Iranians demand access to Twitter
Iranians on Sunday launched a campaign on Twitter asking the social network to allow Iran-based users full account verification services, at the same time as the Twitter CEO called on the Islamic Republic to end its ban on the popular social network. Twitter, like Facebook, is officially banned in Iran. Iran blocked direct access to Twitter in 2009, saying that anti-government demonstrators were using the social network to organize mass protests.
Publisher: lalehsr
27 Sep 2014
A number of recently detained cyber activists identified amid continued crackdown
In the wake of the continued crackdown on Internet freedom, a number of activists who were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards for their activities on social media and messaging outlets have been identified. According to CHRR, Omid Moghadam, Kourosh Najdad, Habib Dehghani, Mehdi Ghanbari and Hadi Ghanbari are among 11 individuals active on Facebook and social networks recently detained in Fars province. There is no news on the situation of these activists who were arrested by IRGC forces.
Publisher: RTE
22 Sep 2014
Iran Arrests 11 Over Insulting Text Messages
An Iranian newspaper says 11 people have been arrested in the south after allegedly sending text messages deemed insulting to the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Haft-e-Sobh daily on Monday quoted Col. Ismaeil Mohebipour of the Revolutionary Guard, as saying the arrests were made after social networking applications on mobile phones - such as WhatsApp, Viber, Line and Tango - were monitored
Publisher: Ynetnews
21 Sep 2014
Iranian president under pressure to curb internet
Publisher: NYTimes
2 Sep 2014
Tehran Unfetters Cellphones, and the Pictures Start Flowing
Last week, the government unexpectedly granted 3G and 4G licenses to the Islamic republic s two principal mobile operators, which are rushing to roll out high-speed connections to their tens of millions of subscribers. While Iranians willing to flout the law have long used illegal software to gain access to banned Internet sites like YouTube and Twitter, until now, Iran s main cellphone operators had been ordered to reduce Internet speeds to a sub-snail s pace, effectively making it impossible to use the sites, make video calls or send images.
Publisher: IranPressNews
5 Aug 2014
Seven Cyber-Activist arrested in Mashhad
Although several days passed since these Cyber-Facebook Activists were arrested, there is no news about their conditions and their whereabouts is unknown regardless of their families' attempts to locate them. It must be said that "Hekmati" and "Chinisaz" are known for their previous blogging activities which criticized Iranian Government and have been arrested -after Ashoora - in 2009 after Presidential election events.
Publisher: Independent
14 Jul 2014
Iran sentences 8 facebook activist to 128 years in prison for criticizing the government
An Iranian court handed jail sentences of eight to 21 years to eight Facebook page administrators, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday. The report said the defendants were convicted of plotting against national security, spreading propaganda against the ruling system and insulting officials. It did not identify the defendants or the Facebook pages.
Publisher: International Campaign for Human Rights
21 Jun 2014
Eleven Internet Professionals Sentenced to One to Eleven Years in Prison
Eleven Kerman Province Internet professionals have been sentenced to prison, with terms ranging from one to eleven years. Yadollah Movahed, the Prosecutor for Kerman Province General and Revolutionary Courts, said at a press conference on June 19, 2014, that the eleven individuals were arrested and prosecuted for "designing sites, websites, and creating content for media hostile to the regime."
Publisher: mashable
29 May 2014
Iran Sentences 8 Facebook Users to Combined 123 Years in Jail
Publisher: The Guardian
28 May 2014
Briton among eight jailed in Iran for web insults
Eight people, including an Iranian-born British woman, have been jailed in Iran on charges including blasphemy and insulting the country's supreme leader on Facebook. The opposition website Kaleme reported that two of the eight, identified as Roya Saberinejad Nobakht, 47, from Stockport, and Amir Golestani, each received 20 years in prison and the remaining six - Masoud Ghasemkhani, Fariborz Kardarfar, Seyed Masoud Seyed Talebi, Amin Akramipour, Mehdi Reyshahri and Naghmeh Shahisavandi Shirazi - between seven and 19 years.