MPs urge firms to stop selling Iran censorship tools

The EU parliament urged European companies on Thursday to refrain from selling to technology and services to Iran that could be used by authorities for censorship and surveillance.

The parliament adopted a resolution voicing "grave concern over the steadily deteriorating human rights situation in Iran," the growing number of political prisoners and the high number of executions, including of juveniles.

The EU MPs called for the release of all political prisoners and denounced "widespread torture, unfair trials and exorbitant sums demanded for bail" as well as "heavy restrictions on freedom of information, expression, assembly, belief, education and movement."

The parliament expressed "concern at the use of (European) censorship, filtering and surveillance technologies to control and censor information and communication flows and to track down citizens, notably human rights defenders."

And they urged "European companies to live up to their corporate social responsibilities by not providing goods, technologies and services to Iran which could endanger the civil and political rights of Iranian citizens."

The resolution, adopted by a large majority, cites the case of Creativity Software, a British firm that has supplied Location-Based Services (LBS) technology to Iranian mobile phone operator MTN Irancell.

Irancell uses the technology for social media services called "Family Finder" and "Friend Finder," which for example allow parents to locate their children at any time, the Iranian company says on its website.

Creativity Software released a statement last week saying it "has not supplied technology to any other entity in Iran."

AFP