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Features

Politicians Appeal For Release of Telegram Prisoners

May 31, 2017
IranWire
5 min read
Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said Rouhani's administration was against the arrests — but was it just a PR stunt?
Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said Rouhani's administration was against the arrests — but was it just a PR stunt?
The letter sent by 30 members of parliament to the Intelligence Minister
The letter sent by 30 members of parliament to the Intelligence Minister

Iranian politicians have appealed to Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi to answer questions concerning the ongoing detention of at least 12 people arrested in March. 

Writing to the minister on May 30, 30 parliamentarians asked for clarification on why the detainees, who were arrested for their roles as administrators on the Telegram messaging service, were still in jail.

As Iran approached the presidential election on May 19, authorities arrested at least 12 Telegram channel administrators, along with a number of reformist and pro-Rouhani journalists. Most of the administrators detained had worked on Telegram channels promoting reformist views, and the arrests were largely seen as an attempt to quell support for the incumbent president. 

The MPs’ letter states that the continued detention of the administrators is in violation of two articles of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. Article 32 states that the accused must be informed of his or her charges within 24 hours: “No person may be arrested except according to and in the manner laid down in the law. If someone is detained, the subject matter of the charge, with reasons (for bringing it), must immediately be communicated and explained in writing to the accused. Within at most 24 hours, the file on the case and preliminary documentation must be referred to the competent legal authority. Legal procedures must be initiated as early as possible. Anyone infringing this principle will be punished in accordance with the law.”

The second article they referenced is Article 35, which mandates access to a lawyer: “In all courts, both parties to the claim are entitled to select a lawyer for themselves. If they do not have the capacity to do this, the means of a lawyer being appointed to act for them must be made available to them.”

The letter asks the minister, as “the main official responsible for the country’s intelligence and security,” to report back on the situation of the detainees. Why were they arrested, the letter asks, and how are their cases being processed? And, crucially, why they are still under arrest?

Parliament’s Leadership Council sent the letter to the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee for review.

This week’s appeal to the intelligence minister is the latest in a series of protests from members of the parliament over the arrests of journalists and online admins. Following the arrest of Ali Ahmadnia, the administrator of the Telegram channel Eslahat (“Reform”) News, and other reformist journalists in March and April, parliament’s Deputy Speaker Ali Motahari called for Alavi to be called in for questioning.

A Parallel Security Apparatus

But politicians and others calling for an explanation for the arrests have largely — perhaps intentionally — overlooked the fact that the Intelligence Ministry is not actually responsible for the matter. In the days immediately following the arrests, it was unclear which agency had carried them out. But soon, it was revealed that it was the work of Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Unit, which works closely with the Iranian judiciary as a parallel security authority and is not accountable to the government or the Intelligence Ministry, even though the government department is nominally in charge of all affairs connected to national security.

In fact, in April, the Intelligence Minister made it clear that not only was his ministry not responsible for the arrests, he called for the release of the detainees. At the same time, he did not specify any concrete action that the government was planning to take, so his announcement was seen as an exercise in public relations, an attempt at damage control following outcry from pro-Rouhani figures and five MPs — all of whom said the arrests were politically motivated. On March 8, Mahmoud Sadeghi, who represents Tehran, wrote a letter to General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, expressing deep concern about the arrests and reminding him that the general himself, in a speech on March 7, had told his commanders: “Not a single member or commander of the Revolutionary Guards has the right to intervene [in the elections] by taking a political or factional side.”

Even before the minister of intelligence spoke out, President Rouhani intervened, at least indirectly, in a bid to defend his administration’s record in protecting free speech. At a press conference on April 10, Rouhani told reporters: “People must vocally express their discontent about issues that they find objectionable and go against their thinking, preferences and expected liberties.” He said the government had “tried its hardest” to keep the Telegram channels running, and warned that blocking one social networking site could lead to the banning of other sites. But, like Alavi days later, he could not pinpoint any particular action the government would take to remedy the situation.

Telegram has become an important campaign tool in Iran, particularly over the last year. According to Fathollah Haghighi, Alborz Province’s deputy governor, 73 percent of Iranians subscribe to the Telegram service and its channels. In autumn 2016, the High Council for Cyberspace announced that 24 million Iranians use Telegram. And, according to Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov, the app has 40 million active users in Iran.

In winter 2016, the Supreme Council for Cyberspace reported that there were more than 100,000 Iranian channels on Telegram, and that more than 1.2 million posts were published on these channels each day. But as Telegram has gained popularity among Iranians, there has been an increasing backlash from Iran’s security agencies, especially the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guards, who do not take their orders from the government.

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