US Commission on International Religious Freedom blasts Tehran for anti-Semitism and "targeting members of the Jewish community."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALWhatsApp logo(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Iran’s Committee on Internet Crimes has banned WhatsApp, the cross-platform instant messaging subscription service for smartphones that American hi-tech tycoon Mark Zuckerberg recently acquired.“The reason for this is the assumption of WhatsApp by the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is an American Zionist,” Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, head of the committee, said, Fox News reported on Friday.Meanwhile, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom blasted the Islamic Republic last week in a report on the repression of religious freedom, Fox News reported.Iran ”continues to propagate anti-Semitism and target members of the Jewish community on the basis of real or perceived ‘ties to Israel.’ Numerous programs broadcast on state-run television advance anti-Semitic messages.Official government discrimination against Jews continues to be pervasive, fostering a threatening atmosphere for the approximately 20,000 member Jewish community,” it said.“Despite the June 2013 election of a new and purportedly moderate president [Hassan Rouhani], the already-poor religious freedom conditions in Iran continued to deteriorate, particularly for religious minorities, especially Baha’is and Christian converts. Sufi and Sunni Muslims and dissenting Shi’a Muslims also faced harassment, arrests, and imprisonment,” the commission said.
