The Iranian parliament is holding a closed-door meeting to discuss the deadly protests that hit the country last week, while more pro-regime rallies were held in several cities.
Lawmakers interrogated Interior Minister Abdolrahmani Rahmani Fazli, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, parliament’s ICANA website reports.
Some voice concern over the internet controls put in place during the unrest, including a ban on Iran’s most popular messaging app, Telegram, which officials said had been used to incite violence.
“The parliament is not in favour of keeping Telegram filtering in place, but it must pledge that it will not be used as a tool by the enemies of the Iranian people,” Behrouz Nemati, spokesman for the parliament’s presiding board, writes on Instagram, which was also temporarily blocked during the unrest.
Many Iranians use Telegram as their main source of news and a way of bypassing the highly restrictive state media, with almost a third of Iran’s 80 million people using the app daily.
— AFP
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From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 7, 2018
