The Citizen Lab - Middle East and North Africa CyberWatch: February 2013

This decision, as announced by the Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Contents (CDICC) was done following the order of the Prosecutor of Tehran, without the involvement [Farsi] of the Commission itself. [...] IRAN: Content filtering instead of URL filtering According to General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, the current filtering system [Farsi] in Iran, where the Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Contents filters entire websites instead of specific pages, is problematic. [...] The document was drafted in 2007, claiming to “provide legal protection for the legitimate use of computers and information networks, and punish those who commit acts that constitute encroachment on the rights of their users.” The bill was widely condemned by human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Access, for vague language and harsh pun. [...] IRAN: New list of cyber crimes related to the presidential election (Note: Cross posted at iranmediaresearch.org [Farsi]) Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, secretary of the Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Contents (CDICC), announced [Farsi] a new list of cyber crimes related to the presidential election, which are included in both the Presidential Election Law and the Islamic Criminal Law. [...] The website allows users to make named or anonymous claims of corruption, asking contributors to detail the government sector, amount demanded, and the reason for the bribe asked.