Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Reza Agha Amiri, a member of Iran’s Filtering Committee, says more than 1500 anti-Islam websites get blocked in Iran by this committee each month.
“The total number of blocked websites by Filtering Committee is not available to publish in general, but our committee usually blocks around 1500 anti-Islam and anti-Shia websites each month.” Hojjatoleslam Agha Amiri said.
He went on to clarify the procedure of blocking websites in the country by saying: “We do all the steps and process manually. It means that the staffers of committee browse websites and filter them according to their contents. The pages include anti-Islam stuffs will be marked as blocked.”
Agha Amiri also expressed his views about the activities of Iran’s Supreme Cyber Council. “I have not ever heard about their achievements. It seems the operation of this council is limited. By the way, it is better for the officials of this council to publicize their activities from time to time in order to keep people updated.”
According to studies conducted by world’s research centers, around 50% of websites are blocked and inaccessible in Iran. This number has been increased during the recent eight years when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative politician, took the power.
It’s worth mentioning that Iran has more than 45 million Internet clients. However, Internet penetration rate has been estimated less than 50% in this Middle Eastern country.