Hugh Pickens writes "The Times reports that the Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organisations and websites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation's president. Reports from Tehran say that social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter were taken down after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed victory. SMS text messaging, a preferred medium of communication for young Iranians, has also been disabled. This is widely suspected to be the result of government interference, but could equally be caused by the poor quality of the network and the heavy demand it is experiencing. "The blocking of access to foreign news media has been stepped up. In addition to the blocking of the BBC's website, the Farsi-language satellite broadcasts of the Voice of America and BBC — which are very popular in Iran — have been partially jammed," says Reporters Without Borders, the media organisation that campaigns for a free press around the world. "The Internet is now very slow, like the mobile phone network. YouTube and Facebook are hard to access and pro-reform sites. . . are completely inaccessible." Mir Hussein Moussavi, the presidential challenger whom President Ahmedinejad claims to have defeated with 63.4 per cent of the vote and fellow presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi have urged the population not to accept the "rigged results." There have been violent clashes between opposition supporters and security forces, with at least one death in the capital."
This discussion was created for logged-in users only, but now has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Iran Moves to End 'Facebook Revolution' 0 Comments More Login /
Get More Comments