This story from @maasalan on Global Voices, directly ties into my research at the Berkman Center on potential prosecution of end-users for using encryption and circumvention technology on their mobile phone. While “severe punishment” is possible, it seems to rarely happen in Iran:
In a report conducted by Iran’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Iranian government announced that of 23.5 million youth using the Internet, 69.3 percent of them are using circumvention technology such as proxies and VPNs — virtual private networks that provide access to the “global Internet”.
At the moment, Iranians often encounter a firewall when trying to access websites that appear antagonistic towards the government or the nation’s Islamic ideals. The report did not make mention of the legality of circumvention tools. But according to Iran’s list of Computer Crimes, the distribution of both circumvention technology and instructions to use such tools are both illegal. Violating these laws can result in severe punishment.