This week Iran’s Parliament decided to suspend discussions of a controversial new law which proposes severe restrictions on Iranians’ access to the Internet.
The official title of the bill is: “Protecting users in cyberspace and organizing social media”, and it sets out to restrict foreign social media such as Facebook and Twitter in favour of domestic alternatives aligned with the government. It would turn over control of the internet in Iran to the Iranian military.
The bill was temporarily withdrawn from discussion by the Parliament in the face of yet another round of major protests against the Iranian regime, this latest round sparked by electricity and water outages.
Activists opposed to the legislation have called on Iranians to take the temporary victory as an opportunity to organize greater resistance and to fight to protect Iranians’ free speech rights.