About a year later, Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the state television and radio service, became the first official to publicly acknowledge that satellite signals were being jammed. A former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Zarghami said, “We send signals. They, too, send signals and stop the transmission of our channels from their satellites.”

The Islamic Republic began to intensify jamming in June 2009, as widespread street protests erupted following a disputed presidential vote. Foreign-based TV channels, such as the BBC's Persian Service and Voice of America's Persian News Network, which were targeting Iranian viewers to provide full coverage of the inflamed political atmosphere in Iran, were extensively jammed.

Hashemi appeared in parliament 10 days later. The question and answer session was comprehensively covered by official media outlets . Yet there was no trace of an actual response to questions regarding the jamming of signals. Hashemi’s silence once again raised doubt about just how determined the Rouhani administration is about confronting those behind the jamming. This is particularly the case since government officials have over the past two years said they will pursue the matter.

On Aug. 16, the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency reported that MP Mohammad Hassan Asafari had submitted an inquiry to parliament about the health hazards posed by the jamming of satellite signals and the Health Ministry’s lack of attention to this matter. His move resulted in parliament summoning Minister of Health Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two years into the term of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, controversy and speculation continue over whether the administration will succeed in addressing the jamming of satellite signals.

Meanwhile, critics have for the past six years repeatedly warned of the adverse effects of these signals on the health of ordinary Iranians. These effects reportedly include increased infertility, neurological disorders and cancer.

After Rouhani’s landslide victory in the 2013 presidential vote, backed by supporters of the Green Movement as well as Reformist leaders and parties, people hoped that the government would stop the jamming. This is even though Rouhani never openly promised to do so during his campaign.

Indeed, in February 2014, half a year after the formation of the Rouhani government, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi announced that a committee would be set up to review the health effects of the jamming. Of note, this followed a request from the president himself. The seven-member committee came to include the ministers of intelligence, defense, communications and health as well as the deputy heads of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Department of Environment.

Toward the end of 2014, the committee announced that a report of its findings had been submitted to the president. However, the contents of this report were never revealed. Not long afterward, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), a news agency close to the Reformists, criticized the committee’s approach and said the only findings were that mobile phone signals pose no danger. Meanwhile, ISNA reported, questions about the potential health hazards of jamming “remain unanswered or the findings have not been announced.”

It should not be overlooked that internal differences within the seven-member committee were serious, indicating divisions within the Rouhani administration about how to deal with the issue. For instance, the health minister argued that there is no scientific evidence to substantiate that the jamming causes cancer. In contrast, the Department of Environment, headed by Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, warned that “the signals’ potential to cause cancer was repeatedly being studied and there is a possibility that they could be a source of cancer in humans.”

Although the issue has been hotly debated for years, no government entity has publicly assumed responsibility for the jamming. But in a rare incident, Ruhollah Hosseinian — a hard-line MP who served in the Intelligence Ministry during the 1990s — offered some insights on this sensitive matter in November 2009. Then, he told Reformist daily Etemaad: “The Supreme National Security Council has put the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of installing the new posts that transmit the signals.”

In the past two years, Rouhani, who was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from its foundation in 1989 until 2005 — and currently heads it — has made no direct remarks about the obstacles that are in the way of putting an end to the jamming. However, last November, Vaezi, the communications minister, said “Part of the jamming of signals is not in our control.”

Foad Shams, a columnist for Reformist papers in Tehran, told Al-Monitor, “The main problem is that unaccountable military and security are transmitting these signals. And if the Rouhani administration wants to do something serious, it should force the military and security organizations, who have no right to transmit such signals and do so illegally, to stop their actions or at least answer to public opinion.”

Criticism against the Rouhani administration’s approach has also been heard from within the president’s own inner circle. In May, Ebtekar told reporters that the government “should provide clear answers about this issue or announce that it is out of its supervision and that it has no power [in this regard].” The administration appears to have finally heard that call.

Late last month, Vaezi publicly stated that the jamming of satellite signals is among the “red lines” of the Rouhani Cabinet, and that it is “hazardous for people’s health.”

Although the experience of the past two years has shown no indication of a strong will on the part of the government to deal with this issue, it is possible that Rouhani may give more thought to confronting the jamming now that the political infighting over the nuclear deal is on its way to coming to an end. He certainly has the popular mandate and expectation to do so.

In the words of one Reformist political activist in Tehran, “People truly believe that those within the state who are responsible for the jamming do not care if people live or die and their only concern is to have control over what is broadcast through satellites. Rouhani has to stand up to these frightening policies.”