Iran will maintain restrictions on access to Instagram and WhatsApp, the most popular foreign platforms in the country, blocked for several months due to the protest movement, President Ebrahim Raissi announced, AFP reports, Agerpres reads.

„The two platforms will not be authorized to operate unless they have a legal representative in the country to be responsible for the activities of their users,” the president said on television.

The authorities have imposed drastic restrictions on the Internet and social networks, blocking in particular access to Instagram and WhatsApp, since the beginning of the demonstrations that broke out after the death in custody of the young Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

The two platforms that belong to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s American company, „were at the origin of the insecurity in the country during the recent riots,” explained Raissi. But, he added, „I told the people in charge in the country that the disruption of the Internet causes the dissatisfaction of the nation”.

Netizens hope for a relaxation of the restrictions in the context in which the number of demonstrations has decreased in recent weeks.

A former government spokesman, Ali Rabii, warned in late January that the activities of „about three million companies and the jobs of 12 million people” are linked to the Internet in Iran, which has become a highly connected country in last years.

Instagram and WhatsApp were the most used applications since the blocking of Youtube, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and Tiktok platforms in recent years.

Even before the protest movement, access to the Internet was restricted: without a VPN-type program, most sites hosted outside the country are inaccessible. The new restrictions made VPN access difficult.

The Minister of Telecommunications, Issa Zarepour, explained on television on Wednesday that the blocking of WhatsApp and Instagram was approved by the „Supreme National Security Council in the presence of the president, the head of the judiciary and the speaker of the parliament”.

Authorities say hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed during the protests, and several thousand others have been arrested.

Agerpres