Iran lifts text message restrictions

TEHRAN, July 1 (UPI) -- Restrictions on cellular services in Iran, including text messaging, should be lifted and communications should return to normal, officials say.

Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, an Iranian interior minister, said the restrictions on cellular services were enacted for security reasons.

Iranian authorities imposed restrictions and other prohibitions on the use of cellular services June 11, the day before the disputed Iranian presidential election.

With protests turning violent in the wake of the elections, Iran enacted harsh restrictions on foreign media. Video from cellular phones posted on Internet media sites became the primary venue for information for several days following the election.

Meanwhile, supporters of former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated opposition candidate, relied on limited text messaging services to relay information on demonstrations against the election.

Hossein Sobhaninia, the deputy head of Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, called for restrictions on text messaging to be lifted, the Mehr News Agency reports.

Sobhaninia's comments came as the 12-member Guardian Council, the election oversight body in Iran, sanctioned the outcome of the June 12 election, giving Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his second term in office.