TEHRAN — Iranian Internet users hit more porn sites than people from any other country on Ashura Day, a Shiite day of mourning, authorities reported.
A senior official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ebrahim Bayani, told his organization’s leaders that the Revolutionary Guards Cyber Army found that among Internet users from 182 countries, Iranians made the highest number of visits to “immoral sites,” according to reports from the Fars news agency.
Bayani also said that the statistics were “alarming” and because of the use of corrupt Internet sites and satellite access “we cannot expect the youth of the country to have any motivation to fast or go to mosque.”
Although Iranian Internet access is restricted from “immoral” websites and even several news sites, users have used special software to circumvent the filters.
A special Islamic Republic government web censorship committee is headed by Iranian Prosecutor Ghilamhossein Mohseni Ejei and includes representatives from the ministries of education, communications, intelligence, technology and culture, as well as representatives from national broadcasting and security forces.
Bayani lashed out at the report and said “the enemies” use cultural means and “corrupt Internet sites and satellite channels to separate the people from religion and deplete the regime from within.”
He added, “strikes against religious values such as hijab [the Islamic dress code] modesty, philanthropy and hard work, as well as the promotion of loose behavior are among the aims of our enemies’ satellite programming.”