Iranian police arrest page owners on social networks
Hidden camera pranks include suicides and fake murders that lead 17 to detention
Iranian police have arrested social networking page owners who carried out "hidden camera" pranks to increase the popularity of their accounts, as they caused "panic" among citizens on the streets, local media reported on Wednesday.
The Tehran police chief, Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi, said that the police "severely punished the people who carried out and published hidden camera tapes, and who tampered with the nerves, security and safety of citizens," according to what was quoted by the government newspaper "Iran".
"We have arrested 17 people who committed these illegal acts," he added.
According to the "Hamshahri" newspaper of the Tehran municipality, these people filmed various hidden camera pranks, and some of them claimed that they were committing suicide, or committing a murder in a taxi.
The newspaper quoted one of the detainees, Shehab, as saying that he carried out a tape in which he throws candy bars at the faces of people using the escalators at a subway station.
"I wanted to make people happy and increase the number of followers of my Instagram page," he added.
The commander of the "Cyberspace Police" in the capital, Colonel Daoud Moazami, said that the users "raised panic among the citizens."
"They made these hidden camera videos to attract customers and get publicity on Instagram and Twitter," he added.
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