Human Rights Commission asked to investigate MTN

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has received a request to investigate MTN for human rights violations in Iran, its spokesman said on Tuesday.

MTN has been accused of facilitating the surveillance of Iranian opposition activists by allowing phones to be bugged.

Rival cellphone company Turkcell has also accused MTN of using bribery to obtain an operating licence for Iran.

The case has been brought before a court in the US.

According to court papers quoted on Monday by Democratic Alliance spokesman David Maynier, MTN "offered the advantage" to Iranian state-owned defence company Sairan to provide access by the Iranian Ministry of Defence to MTN's devices once the company was running a private cellular network in Iran.

"The access would facilitate installation of eavesdropping technology on MTN devices," Maynier quoted the court papers as alleging.

"We have received a request from the DA to investigate whether the MTN Group may be directly or indirectly responsible for human rights violations in Iran," said SAHRC spokesman Vincent Moaga.

The first stage of the investigation would establish whether there had been prima facie violations of human rights and whether MTN had a case to answer to.

It would also establish whether the SAHRC was the correct body to deal with the matter, and what mechanisms were available to conduct the investigation, Moaga said.

Maynier said his concerns about MTN's role were compounded by reports that MTN-Irancell had purchased various monitoring softwares between 2008 and 2011.

These included the purchases of a system to monitor local voice calls from Nokia Siemens Networks in 2008, a system to filter, block and store text message from AdaptiveMobile, and systems to monitor the location of users from Ericsson in 2009 and Creativity Software in 2009 and 2011.

The MTN Group owns 49% of MTN-Irancell, through its subsidiary MTN International, Maynier said.

There was no evidence that MTN-Irancell was involved directly or indirectly in human rights violations.

But opposition members had been confronted by intelligence officers with transcripts of their mobile phone calls, e-mails and text messages, said Maynier.

In a statement on MTN's website, the company states that its role in widening access to mobile technology was a liberating force for Iranians, regardless of political allegiances.

"On human rights, the group takes direction from and adheres to the policies of both the South African government and the United Nations... MTN seeks to ensure that our corporate values of respect for human rights are reflected in the way we do business and we expect all our partners to adhere to these fundamental principles," the group said.

"We are subject to local legal requirements in respect of intercept and government access to data."

MTN spokesman Xolisa Vapi referred requests for comment to the group's website.