Iran's Supreme Leader calls for regulation of cyberspace

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has imposed some of the strictest controls on internet access in the world, said on Tuesday that cyberspace needed to be regulated, citing the arrest of messaging app Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France as an example of how other countries also imposed controls.

"There need to be laws to regulate cyberspace. Everyone does it. Look at the French, they arrested this man and threatened him with 20 years in prison for breaching their laws," Khamenei said during a meeting with relatively moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian and his cabinet.

The Islamic Republic has some of the strictest internet controls in the world but its blocks on US-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks (VPNs).

Russian-born Durov, also a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates, was arrested in Paris as part of an investigation into crimes related to sexual abuse of children, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform, French prosecutors said on Monday.


Reuters