A Critical Discussion on the Jurisprudential Basis of the Iranian Filtering Policy

Internet, despite its benefits and potentials, has disadvantages for all countries, especially Iran, which has unique cultural, religious, and political characteristics. One way of dealing with these threats is imposing a filtering system, which has been seriously pursued almost since the advent of the Internet in the country. Examining the various dimensions of the Iranian filtering system shows that we are facing a "Maximum Filtering Policy", although being implemented incompletely in practice. This policy has been based on some of the Islamic jurisprudential principles such as "Duty of Enjoining the Right and Forbidding the Wrong"(Amr bi al-Maruf wa'l-Nahy an al-Munkar), "Prohibition the Books of Misguidance"(Hurmat-e Kutub al-Dalal), and "The Rule of Rejecting Foreign Influence"(Nafy-e Sabil). Based on these rules, the researchers have concluded that filtering the Internet is permitted or even essential. This study has tried to investigate the arguments of permitting Internet filtering based on the Islamic jurisprudential principles. The results suggested that among the cited principles, it is only the "Duty of Enjoining the Right and Forbidding the Wrong" can be referred independently to form the basis of filtering system, however, its achievement in practice requires satisfying some essential requirements. In addition, by considering the experience and effects of the current policy, it was concluded that the filtering policy needs to be replaced by a more lenient one, and this does not face any obstacles in terms of Islamic jurisprudential principles.