Nokia Siemens "instrumental to persecution and arrests of Iranian dissidents", says EU

Nokia Siemens has been condemned in a European Parliament resolution for its links with Iran. The company was criticised for “providing the Iranian authorities with censorship and surveillance technology [and] being instrumental to persecution and arrests of Iranian dissidents”.

Nokia Siemens has vigorously denied that it has provided anything to Iran that is not completely standard in other countries around the world.

The resolution further called on EU institutions to "ban the export of surveillance technology by European companies to governments and countries such as Iran". Nokia Siemens, however, said it had provided only “limited monitoring capabilities, similar to those used by law enforcement in many countries, for predefined phone numbers only”. It added that their system, supplied to Iran in 2008, “does not allow the scanning of network traffic in order to discover or identify users based on the content of their transmissions”.

In a lengthy Q&A released on Nokia Siemens’s website, the company went on to deny providing any continued support for the technology, which it no longer sells, and adds that it offers no facility for the detailed inspection of the small amount of email traffic which is carried on Iran’s mobile networks. In Iran, mobile networks have “clearly have played a pivotal role in their ability to communicate, organize, and share their story with the outside world”, the company said.