Iran in talks to unblock Twitter, says new minister

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Iran’s new communications minister said Tuesday that negotiations were underway with Twitter to unblock the service, which has been banned for years despite being used even by the country’s supreme leader.

"(Twitter) has announced that it is prepared to negotiate to resolve problems,” Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi told the Iran daily newspaper.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (C) listen to his advisors upon arriving at the parliament in Tehran on August 20, 2017, as Iran's parliament prepares to vote on the President's cabinet. / AFP Photo

"Considering the current situation there are grounds for such negotiation and interaction. Twitter is not an immoral environment needing to be blocked,” he added.

The 36-year-old Jahromi became Iran’s youngest-ever minister this week, and the first to be born after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

His selection has been criticized by rights groups over his involvement in surveillance during and after the mass anti-regime protests of 2009.

Supporters of the Iranian opposition demonstrate with a poster of Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (R) and a caricature of Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (C) on December 28, 2009 in Paris. /AFP Photo‍

But Jahromi is also seen as a critic of online censorship in Iran, where sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter remain banned even if millions use them daily through easily available privacy software.

There was no immediate response from Twitter to his comments.

He said officials were also looking at ways to unblock YouTube while still censoring “immoral content” on the site, and that a pilot project was being run, allowing universities to access the site.

Jahromi added that the final decision on unblocking Twitter did not lie with his ministry, but with the Supreme Council for Cyberspace, which includes members of the hardline judiciary.

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) flashes the sign for victory at the Interior Ministry's election headquarters as candidates begin to sign up for the upcoming presidential elections in Tehran on April 12, 2017. /AFP Photo

Twitter was banned at the time of mass anti-regime protests in 2009, which followed allegations of massive rigging in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But despite the ban, the US messaging service is widely used by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has official accounts in several languages, as well as President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Even Ahmadinejad joined the service this year.

Separately, Jahromi rejected allegations he was involved in interrogations during the 2009 protests.

“I wasn’t responsible for surveillance — I was in charge of the technical infrastructure for the surveillance industry, and I consider it an honor,” he said in a meeting with lawmakers this week, according to the Shahrvand newspaper.

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Source(s): AFP