Iran gov’t spokesman censures U.S. flagrant violation of right to free speech
The Iranian government spokesman slammed on Wednesday the U.S. flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression, saying his Instagram account has been blocked.
Ali Bahadori Jahromi made the remark in a Wednesday tweet, adding his account was blocked merely owing to his post to congratulate the National Guard’s Day, which fell on March 6 this year, marked to commemorate the birth anniversary (3rd of the lunar month of Sha’ban) of Imam Hussain (PBUH), the third Imam of Shia Muslims.
Posting the address of his new Instagram page, he noted that from now on, he would also have an account on the domestic social media app ‘Rubika’.
His tweet read: “Instagram, in a flagrant instance of violating the right to freedom of speech and merely owing to congratulating the [National] Guard’s Day, blocked my account.
The address of my new Instagram page is: https://instagram.com/alibahadorijahromii. From now on, I will also be active on Rubika application: https://rubika.ir/alibahadorijahromi.”
In another instance of U.S. attack against freedom of expression, a few days ago, American social media giant Facebook “permanently” removed the page of Iran’s Arabic-language television news network Al-Alam TV from its platform without giving any prior notice.
The new attack against freedom of expression came as Al-Alam TV Facebook page, which was launched in 2010, had attracted some 6,000,000 followers.
Facebook had earlier refused to register Al-Alam TV’s page, claiming that the Tehran-based network had not complied with its terms regarding the publication of photos of the flags and the leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Ansarullah and other Palestinian resistance groups.
This is while a number of other media outlets freely publish pictures of leaders of Takfiri terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, on their Facebook pages.
The Al-Alam TV Facebook page had "temporarily" been blocked in January 2020 following the assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units, in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport.
Back in late January, Facebook permanently deleted the page of Iranian Spanish language news channel Hispan TV.
Over the past years, Facebook – along with YouTube, Twitter and Google – have repeatedly targeted media outlets of Iran and the countries critical of the West and the Israeli regime’s occupation of Palestine.
Source: Iran Daily