ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Islamic Republic of Iran has officially shut down a Kurdish channel on the Telegram networking app , said an Iranian Kurdish official, explaining that the reason was because his party is boycotting upcoming elections in the country. Over the last few days, parts of the pages and channels of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran, including its Telegram channel, were shut down. Karim Parwezi, a member of the KDPI politburo, told Rudaw that, after his party said it was boycotting the next parliamentary elections in Iran, top officials of the Islamic Republic decided to block their activities on the social network site. "There is no clear evidence about why, by whom and how it was shut down," said Parwezi. Iranian communication minister Mahmoud Vaezi said that his ministry had reported some channels engaging in activities on Telegram that were not in line with Iran's rules. He said authorities "have listed several other channels for removal," on the Telegram messaging app. There has been no reaction by the Telegram officials for these claims. Telegram rules say that only channels related to terrorism and porn are shut down, not political ones. Telegram is a popular cloud-based instant messaging service that was established in 2013. Its users can send messages and exchange photos or videos. Some 22 million people from Iran have reportedly joined Telegram, out of which 15 million remain active.Several times last year, Iran attempted to disconnect its users from Telegram on various pretexts. Pavel Durov, one of the founders of the networking site, said: "after we ruled out a call from the Iranian officials to spy on its members, Telegram was blocked, but it was temporary." Iranian officials, among them, Mohammed Ali Asfaraiani, head of the country's internet filtering, believes that if authorities "shut down this social network and prevent people from taking advantage of it, many people might follow other alternatives," on the internet.
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