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Iran: State-run IRNA news agency ordered to stop promoting ‘seditionist’ Facebook

The Iranian regime’s state-run IRNA news agency has been warned by officials to stop promoting Facebook, which the Supreme leader has declared to be an ‘instrument of sedition’.

The head of body that oversees Internet filtering, Abdul Samad Khoram-Aabadi,  who is also a legal adviser to the country’s prosecutor general, told the IRNA it is neglecting decrees from by Ali Khamenei and cleric Naser Makarem Shirazi that the social networking is used for spying on the regime.

Khoram-Aabadi said in a letter to the news agency: “The Supreme Leader declared in his meeting with the Basij Commanders on November 19, 2013, that Facebook is an instrument in the hands of seditionists and likened it to the the economic sanctions.

“Makarem Shirazi has declared membership and activities on Facebook to be forbidden.”

In response to a question about the religious legitimacy of joining Facebook, he added: “Facebook is like a city with no doors, and all kind of people from the educated to thieves and cheats and the corrupt have a shop in this city.

“And in this shop are the instruments of sin, corruption and ethical deviations, as well as the tools that cause conflicts between nations, although they are presented with deceptively beautiful labels and covers.

“If entering to this city was permitted for everyone from the young to the old, would a wise person allow people to freely enter this city? Even the thieves and the corrupt people can enter the city and plot their conspiracies in secret or using code.”

The body that oversees internet monitoring consists of 15 officials, more than half of whom are members of the government. Once every 15 days, the group rules on which websites are permitted and which should be censored.