TEHRAN: The son of Iran’s president has called for the internet restrictions in the country to be lifted, saying nothing will be solved by trying to postpone the moment when pictures and video circulate of the protests that were violently crushed by the regime.
With a battle under way at the top of the regime about the political risks of continuing to block Iran from the internet, Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected in the summer of 2024, said keeping the digital shutdown would create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.
“This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,” he wrote in a Telegram post. The release of videos showing the violence of the protests was “something we will have to face sooner or later”, Yousef Pezeshkian added. “Shutting down the internet will not solve anything, we will just postpone the issue.”
Molavi Abdolhamid, a prominent Sunni cleric and outspoken leader in Zahedan, south-east Iran, referred to the violent killing of protesters during January as an “organised massacre”.
Yousef Pezeshkian, a government adviser, said the risk of keeping Iran cut off from the internet was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored.
He said security institutions must ensure security with the existence of the internet, which he called a necessity in life.
Pezeshkian, echoing comments of his father, said the protests had turned violent only because of professionally trained groups affiliated with foreigners, but added: “In the meantime the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes and no one is going to defend wrongdoing and that has to be addressed.”
