Drones Banned Over Tehran

Flying drones have been banned in Tehran following two instances when the unmanned aerial vehicles flew over restricted airspace in central areas. Licenses will now only be granted to “relevant bodies and not individuals,” military officials have said following last month’s failed attempt to bring one of the UAV’s down near the city’s Iranshahr area, according to AFP. Notably the firing of anti-aircraft guns in central Tehran shocked the city.    “These quadcopters are equipped with cameras and can fly over sensitive sites, film them and be exploited by the enemy,” the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Ali Reza Rabi’I said in the new decree. The first high profile incident occurred when an Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting drone drifted into restricted airspace in another area in downtown Tehran late in 2016. The television station was subsequently warned not to fly their drones in that region again and that drone was destroyed. Camera studios in Tehran and other cities have begun using the flying vehicles as a way of promoting companies and also creating videos to upload onto the internet.