Washington (AFP)
The US State Department has urged Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to suspend the accounts of the Iranian regime's leaders until the internet is re-established in the country, plagued by tensions.
The Iranians have been cut off from the world for more than a week after Tehran's almost total network cut in the context of violent protests.
"It's a deeply hypocritical regime, it cuts the internet, while its government continues to use all these accounts on social networks," said Iranian envoy Brian Hook in an interview with Bloomberg relayed Saturday on Twitter.
"We call social networking companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to suspend the accounts of Supreme Leader (Ali) Khamenei, Foreign Minister (Javad) Zarif and President (Hassan) Rohani until they make internet to their own people ".
Troubles erupted on November 15, a few hours after the announcement of a reform of the subsidy mode of gasoline, supposed to benefit the less favored households but accompanied by a very sharp rise in the price at the pump, in a context of deep economic crisis.
The next day, the Iranians were cut off from the world after a drastic restriction of internet access, seen as a way to prevent the sharing of videos of the unrest, which killed five people according to an official record, more than a hundred according to the NGO Amnesty International.
"The regime cut the internet because it is trying to hide all the deaths and tragedies it has inflicted on thousands of protesters across the country," Hook said.
Friday, the United States imposed sanctions against the Iranian Minister of Telecommunications Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi for "his role in the vast censorship of the Internet" in Iran, affected by a large protest movement.
In a Persian tweet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had the day before called on the Iranian demonstrators to convey to the United States any evidence of "repression" by the Tehran regime, assuring them that they would "punish these abuses".
© 2019 AFP