Page 42 - IRANRptFeb19

Iran’s cyberpolice force has blocked IRR718bn (€6.97mn) in bets placed online within Iran since the beginning of the current Persian year (started March 21), IBENA reported on December 18.
Except for wagers on camel, horse racing or archery contests, betting is illegal in Iran. That has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But recent years have seen the emergence of online betting portals that enable internet users in the country to place bets on popular sports including Iranian and international football.
The cyberpolice reportedly said that in the past nine months they have targeted some 1,500 betting sites. They were either pulled offline or blocked. More than 200,000 people were said by the police unit to indulge in illicit betting annually. Some 913 criminal cases have been brought to court, it added.
Likely sentences for illicit gambling are 70 lashes or six months in prison. Many ardent gamblers in Iran typically travel to nearby countries where betting is not outlawed. Turkmenistan is one such country that has become popular with Iranian gamblers. There they can bet on horse racing as well as other sports. Its capital Ashgabat is just a three-hour drive from Iran’s second-biggest city, Mashhad.
More than one million websites using the .IR domain affix are now operational in Iran, Mehr News Agency reported on December 16.
Iran has a burgeoning website industry particularly as e-commerce companies offer everything from ride-hailing and e-retail to price comparison services. However, the industry suffers from a lack of wider visibility due to the .IR domain not appearing in the results of foreign search engine sites including Google due to US sanctions directed at the country.
Some 50,000 new domains have been added by the Iranian website industry so far in the first nine months of the current Persian calendar year (March 21-December 21), according to latest figures released by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology cited by the news agency.
The non-suffixed .IR domain is in the lead in terms of registrations with 1.2mn websites, while .NET.IR is the least registered local domain name. Meanwhile, the number of government websites registered under the GOV.IR domain name stands at 235.
In addition, CO.IR is taken by 3,980 websites, AC.IR by 1,362 websites, SCH.IR by 274, ORG.IR by 305 and ID.IR by 494.
9.1.5 Agriculture sector news
A ban on exports of tomato paste from Iran has been lifted, according to Iran Labour News Agency.
In mid-October, the Iranian government banned tomato exports and extended the ban to tomato paste products following panic buying of tomato paste, a staple ingredient used in many local dishes.
The collapse in the value of the Iranian rial amid US sanctions has made exporting the items a profitable line of business.
Early November reportedly saw Iranian customs authorities seize 15 tonnes of smuggled tomatoes bound for Iraq at the Soomar customs point in Kermanshah province. The confiscated tomatoes bore the wrong export label, namely a label for lettuce. However, agents who were checking shipping dockets on trucks spotted the attempted deceit. Under Article 113 of the customs law, mislabelling of goods is "treated as smuggling".
The ban was apparently lifted after good tomato harvests enabled sufficient
42 IRAN Country Report February 2019 www.intellinews.com