AKI - Adnkronos international Iran: Access to Google blocked
Tehran, 17 Sept. (AKI) - The Iranian government has blocked access to one of the world's most popular search engines, Google. Since Sunday, Iranian websurfers have not been able to access the site.Hamid Shahriari, the secretary of Iran's National Council of Information, confirmed that access to the site had been denied in an interview with Mehr news agency in Tehran. Shahriari did not give any reason why the step was taken or when Iranians would be able to access Google again.
Iran is not the first country to block Google. In June 2006, China blocked the international search engine, even though the controversial Chinese language version remained unaffected.
The Chinese language version, launched in January last year, blocks politically sensitive material to comply with China's government censorship rules. Human rights groups have accused Google of accommodating Beijing's demands for censorship in return for access to the nation's vast internet market.
In Iran, there are hundreds of websites that have been blocked and that Iranians have no direct access to websites and blogs containing sexual or political content, as well as women's rights and social networking sites.
Recently some Iranian news agencies such as ISNA (the Iranian Student's News Agency) and Baztab, which are regularly controlled by the authorities, have also been blocked.
Even the site of Grand Ayatollah Hassan Ali Montazeri, is among the websites blocked by the Iranian government.
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