Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

A high commander in Iran cyber police says Facebook is ‘the most disgusting spyware and the most dangerous warfare of the U.S.’ which is also ‘responsible for one third of divorces in Iran’.

Facebook and other famous social networking websites are blocked by Iranian authorities. They blame this services as ‘tools to promote unrest and in favor of regime change in Iran’.

An organization affiliated with Iran’s government says 60 percent of Iranians are connected to the internet, 40 percent of them are young people in their 20s.
Iran’s “Center For Managing National Development Of Internet”, MATMA, says more than 45 millions are connected to the internet,almost 2.5 millions of them through their mobile devices.

The deputy parliament speaker says Tehran has ‘more than 1 million Facebook users’ and there are more than 200,000 in other big cities of Iran like Shiraz and Rasht. Hasan Aboutorabi regrets that ‘such a potential space is in the hands of our enemy and they deploy all of its capacities against us.’

Iran's police Commander in Chief, Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam says police is looking for ‘smart control’ over social networking websites. He believes this ‘smart control’ is better than a full blocking and people may use their 'useful parts'.

Sources close to Iranian opposition say Sattar Beheshti, blogger and netizen, possibly died ‘due to tortures' while he was in detention. Beheshti got arrested last week in his home. His sister says “authorities asked us to prepare a grave for him and take his body tomorrow”.

Reporters Without Borders is ‘very worried about the state of health of eight women prisoners of conscience who began a hunger strike five days ago in protest against inhuman and degrading jail conditions'. These prisoners include three journalists and netizens; Mahsa Amrabadi, Jila Bani Yaghoob and Shiva Nazar Ahari.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced that they are concerned about the health of Mohammad Reza Pourshajari, the jailed writer of the blog “Iran Land’s Report”. RSF says according to blogger's family “he is in a critical condition, suffering from kidney failure and aggravated by a lack of medical treatment”.

A bus in southwestern Iran overturned in southwestern Iran on Friday, October 19. Several Iranian bloggers urged the Minister of Education to resign as ‘a minimum reaction to this tragedy'. Iranian cyberspace accused the Iranian authorities for being irresponsible about the lives of people.

Commander in chief of Iran cyber police insists that the authorities would prosecute those who ‘promote immorality and prostitution’ in social network websites. Kamal Hadianfar claims [fa] that Iranian police would ‘purify’ this social network ‘with collaboration of Facebook managers'. Major social networking services including Facebook and Twitter are blocked in Iran.