After two years of inter-agency bickering over launching telephone text messaging in Iran, the country’s chief prosecutor asked the minister of communications to come up with ways to control this media.

In the letter, which was published by the officials IRNA news agency, the chief prosecutor again demonstrated the negative attitude of Iranian officials towards modern communications technologies and wrote, “The principle of monitoring requires that in order to prevent undesirable social, moral and cultural issues and the invasion of privacy of citizens, deterrent and preventive measures be taken to control and actively supervise” this media.

The official singled out the transmission of images through cash card telephones and requested from the minister of communications “to provide multi-media services for short messages to customers through cash-cards only if the identity of the applicants had been registered and known, and should be followed by continuous monitoring and control in order to prevent unidentified individuals from using the service.”

Chief prosecutor Dori Najafabadi, who through this letter has issued an express order for controlling and monitoring the contents of the text messaging media, explained that the purpose of this control was to “prevent unpleasant outcomes and potential violations” of the media by its users.

Phone text messaging, or SSM as it is also known, came into the social public debate in Iran about three years ago when operators of cell phones publicly announced their readiness to

About two years ago, the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, whose members are directly appointed by the supreme leader of Iran and who determine the long-term cultural and social policies of the state, passed by-laws for the filtering and controlling the text messaging media in the country.

Two days after the announcement of these rules, providers of cash-card telephone services and the media, aired their protests which was followed by the Council’s announcement that “the rules governing the filtering of text messages were written on the request and recommendation of the ministry of communications and other officials of Ahmadinejad’s administration.

With the passage of these rules, the provision of text messaging services to mobile telephone subscribers stopped for all practical purposes. But companies who had investments in telecommunications continued their efforts to remove these barriers because of the vast profits that they promised.

Iranian officials do not normally provide detailed information about the government’s revenues that are generated through communication services, but the government director in charge of mobile communication announced in 2007 that the revenues of text messaging through mobile phones was 630 million a day (about $630,000). The director general of Iran’s telecommunications agency had earlier told ISNA student news agency that the largest source of revenue for the state and the government after oil, was from Iran Telecommunication Company.

Last week, ISNA news agency reported that during the first two days after Nowruz (March 20 and 21st), 287 million text message had been exchanged between Iranian mobile phone subscribers.

But despite its large contribution to the state coffers, some government officials have expressed concern about the political and social implications of this media, and some have even viewed it a as a crime which are used for the purpose of “satanic and dark goals”, terms implying political motives against the regime.

Basirat website belonging to the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) too has declared text messaging to be “a destructive” media and has called on for the filtering and control of this mobile telephone media.

Last year, Saeed Mortezavi, the infamous prosecutor of Tehran announced the creation of a special court to try Internet and text messing crimes and told semi-official Fars news agency that personality character cases and election violations that take place through short telephone messages (i.e. text messaging)” would be tried in the special court.

During the presidential elections in 2005, Mahmud Ahmadinejad asserted at a television program that his rivals had “destroyed” him by sending destructive telephone text messages. After he became president, this claim was never proven or followed up and the judiciary announced that it had not identified any persons or agencies that had committed such acts.