|
Iranian authorities have blocked access to several
websites and blogs of women's rights advocates and journalists
critical of the government, a press report said on Tuesday.
The move follows a new directive
sent out by a committee tasked with identifying illegal websites to
Internet service providers, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper
said without giving a source.
"There seems to be a tougher
approach this time as some sites and weblogs belonging to women's
rights and human rights campaigners, writers critical of the
government and well-known journalists" have been singled out,
it said.
Internet providers in Iran have
in recent years been told to block access to hundreds of political,
human rights and women's sites and weblogs for expressing dissent or
deemed to be pornographic and anti-Islamic.
The report said several feminist
websites including Meydaan-e Zanan (Women's Field), Kanoon Zanan
Irani (Iranian Women's Centre), Shir Zanan which covers women's
sporting events, and "Change for Equality" have been
blocked.
The ban has targeted the
"One Million Signatures" campaign websites launched in
different Iranian cities as well as in Germany, Kuwait, Cyprus and
California in the United States, the report said.
The campaign seeks to change the
Islamic republic's laws for women in marriage, divorce, inheritance
and child custody by collecting signatures online and in person.
The ban has also targeted popular
social networking sites and news sites, while several cyber
journalists and bloggers have been detained.
With more than half the
70-million-strong population aged under 30, Iran has one of the
highest number of bloggers in the world. Persian-language blogs have
multiplied since a crackdown on the reformist press in 2000.
--AFP
|
