TEHRAN: Iran will not be able to keep up forever its ban on legal access to Internet hubs such as Facebook, which has four million Iranian users, Culture Minister Ali Janati said yesterday.
Such remarks by an Iranian official would have been unimaginable before President Hassan Rowhani, a reputed moderate, took office in August with a vow for more freedom.
“Four million Iranians are on Facebook, and we have restricted it,” said Janati.
“We cannot restrict the advance of (such technology) under the pretext of protecting Islamic values,” said the minister.
Access to the popular social networking site — along with others which Iranian authorities regard as un-Islamic, immoral or undermining the Islamic establishment — is obstructed by a massive filtering mechanism.
But tech-savvy Iranians have resorted to measures, known as anti-filters, to circumvent the restrictions.
Janati drew a parallel with a ban on fax machines and video tapes and players imposed the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“If we look back, we see many of the actions we took after the revolution were ridiculous.”
Unapproved sites are put under the filtering system. The ban includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and numerous other sites, including blogs.
Janati suggested that the government was working to remove the online constraints.
“However, (filtering) is one of those issues whose solution requires time. And it will be resolved in time,” Janati said.
AFP
