In a Norooz special edition of ‘Fan-Zi’ by Shargh newspaper, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, ex-Minister of Communications, said he was opposed to the November 2019 internet shutdown. But he said that despite his opposition, it was executed legally following a National Security Council resolution.
Despite this, Iranian laws do not grant any authority the power to disrupt internet services. The question remains: Why, years after leaving his ministerial post, does the former Minister of Communications not acknowledge that the order to disconnect the internet and its notification mechanism via the National Security Council lacked legal basis?
Azari Jahromi, while discussing the court-ordered blocking of Telegram, also tries to distance his ministry from responsibility in this matter. Additionally, he portrays himself as opposing the division of traffic into domestic and international categories. However, his professional history reveals that he played a substantial role in designing and implementing this segmentation, both before and after his tenure as Minister.
This analysis examines the legal dimensions of Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi’s statements regarding internet disconnections. It also scrutinizes his interview about developing and implementing regulations for segregating domestic and international traffic. Additionally, it highlights his involvement in the deployment of the National Information Network project, which enabled the possibility for a complete internet shutdown.
No law in Iran authorizes the disruption of internet services.
In his Fan-Zi interview, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi refers to the November 2019 internet shutdown as a regrettable incident but one that occurred legally. He states, “Although I was opposed to the internet shutdown, there was no alternative but to implement it.” Azari Jahromi adds in the Tech-Zi interview: “There is a clause in the law that allows the Supreme National Security Council to decide on an internet shutdown under crisis conditions.” Based on this, he considers the decision by the Supreme National Security Council to shut down the internet in 2019 to be in accordance with the law.
However, a critical and often overlooked fact is that Iranian laws do not authorize any entity to order an internet shutdown. The specific clause or law to which Azari Jahromi alludes when discussing the legality of internet shutdowns in Iran remains unclear.
The Supreme National Security Council was established in 1989 based on Article 176 of the Iranian Constitution (alternative link). The responsibilities of this Council are also outlined in Article 176, which include:
- Determining the country’s defensive and security policies within the framework of overall policies set by the Supreme Leader.
- Coordinating political, intelligence, social, cultural, and economic activities in relation to overall defense and security measures.
- Utilizing the material and spiritual resources of the country to counter internal and external threats.
From these listed duties in the Constitution, it cannot be inferred that the Supreme National Security Council has the authority to decide on internet shutdowns. Contrary to Mr. Azari Jahromi’s statements, no law in Iran grants the Supreme National Security Council the authority to disrupt internet services. Therefore, any decision by the Supreme National Security Council regarding internet shutdowns lacks legal legitimacy.
However, more than four years later, Azari Jahromi still considers the internet shutdown to be legally mandated. According to his own statements, he even attempted to propose a bill to articulate and formulate “a general law”. Yet, the reality remains that no general law had ever authorized an internet shutdown that required limitation or specification.
The nationwide internet shutdown presided over by Azari Jahromi spanned from November 16 to November 24, 2019. On December 14, 2019, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi announced the preparation of a bill that would legalize internet shutdowns. This bill, crafted during his term, marked Iran’s first initiative to legalize such shutdowns, rather than to refine or restrict an existing statute. Nonetheless, the bill encountered resistance and failed to advance to parliament.
A critical question arises: if there is no law for internet shutdowns, how did the Supreme National Security Council issue such an order? The short answer is that, in 2019, the National Security Council acted extralegally. The decisions by the Supreme National Security Council, like those of any other institution, must align with legal frameworks, not exceed them.
According to information shared with Filterwatch by a source affiliated with the Ministry of Communications, the internet shutdown in 1398 was ordered by the Country’s Security Council.
The Country’s Security Council is one of the subsidiary councils of the Supreme National Security Council. Consequently, if the Supreme National Security Council is not vested with this authority, it cannot confer such powers upon its subsidiary councils.
With this explanation, it is clear that contrary to what Azari Jahromi has stated, the internet shutdown in 2019 was based on an extralegal resolution, not a lawful decree.
Telegram was filtered by order of an investigator, not by a court ruling
In May 2018, Telegram was blocked by judicial order in Iran. At that time, it was reported that Telegram, with nearly 40 million users, was consuming more than 60% of the country’s bandwidth.
The features and capabilities of Telegram had increased its popularity among Iranians to the extent that it became a significant platform for information dissemination and business.
No court was convened for the blocking of Telegram; it was simply blocked on May 1, 2018, by a judicial order issued by Bijan Ghasemzadeh, the investigator at branch 2 of the Tehran Culture and Media Prosecutor’s Office. However, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, in his interview, has stated that Telegram was filtered by a court ruling, therefore, there was no possibility for the government or his ministry to challenge this decree. He added:
“Within the framework of the rights and authority given to us by the people and by law, we are not gladiators who start fighting each other. The law provides certain capacities to ministers and the government, within which it can involve various stakeholders. In the case of Telegram, the judiciary preferred to use the power granted by the law and left no room for negotiation. A court ruling should not be influenced by political decisions. Thus, when the filtering of Telegram went to court and the court ruled to filter it, there was no room for political lobbying.”
The statements by Mr. Jahromi and his efforts to attribute the blocking of Telegram to a court order raise several questions:
The order to filter Telegram was issued based on Article 114 of the Criminal Procedure Code, (Alternate Link) enacted in 2013, which allows such decisions to be challenged in court within five days. Did the Ministry of Communications at the time utilize the legal avenues available and file a complaint against this order or the investigator? If he was opposed to the filtering of Telegram and the infringement of the rights of the people and businesses at that time, why is there no report of any legal efforts by Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi’s ministry to pursue the case through judicial complaints?
From Domestic and International Traffic Segregation to National Internet
One of the issues addressed in the interview with Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi was the high cost of internet access. The former Minister of Communications attributed the rise in internet prices in Iran to filtering and disruptions to VPN services, stating:
”When an operator’s revenue decreases, they are forced to raise internet prices. Despite this, a decision was made to increase internet prices by 34%, which I criticize on principle; why implement filtering knowing it necessitates a price hike afterward?”
In the interview, he positioned himself as a critic and opponent of the price increase, adding that it causes people, whose means are already limited, to cut back on internet usage, thereby exacerbating the digital divide in the country.
It must not be forgotten that the ongoing increase in international internet prices results from the policy of segregating domestic and international traffic, implemented during Azari Jahromi’s tenure at the Ministry of Communications. In line with the implementation of the ‘Document on the Requirements of the National Information Network’ (Alternate link), which was communicated by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace in 2016, domestic and international traffics were segregated, and the cost of international internet for Iranian users has continually risen.
According to regulations, domestic traffic refers to any traffic hosted within the country. The fact that domestic traffic benefits from better quality and pricing than international traffic contradicts the principle of network neutrality. The internet is designed based on the principle of network neutrality, meaning that internet providers and governments should not discriminate or behave differently based on the type of content, origin, sender, and recipient of data transmitted through the network. The network should not and cannot prioritize certain data over others.
Azari Jahromi’s efforts to implement traffic segregation date back to even before his tenure as the Minister of Communications. As Deputy Minister and CEO of the Communications Infrastructure Company during Mahmoud Vaezi’s ministry, he defended traffic segregation by advocating for “preferential tariffs” to support domestic services and content.
In fact, the rise in the cost of international internet and the extensive restrictions on VPNs are government efforts to shift Iranian users towards the use of cheaper domestic internet. This planned and gradual transition to domestic internet allows the government to potentially cut off access to the global internet at opportune moments.
After the nationwide internet shutdown in 2019, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi published a video stating that banking services and online services that operated on the National Information Network were still functional. In reality, the achievements mentioned by the Minister of Communications in that video were nothing more than the successful testing of the National Information Network during the disconnection of the country from the global internet.
