Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about a government decision, taken at a cabinet meeting on 27 November, that all websites dealing with Iran will have to register with the culture ministry in the next two months, a statement by the group said. The new rule will probably be difficult to implement and seems designed above all to give the authorities grounds to close down independent news sites.
It will be impossible to force the tens of thousands for websites dealing with Iran, most of which are hosted on servers abroad, to register with the authorities. But this rule could serve as pretext for arbitrarily closing or filtering news websites. It will give a legal basis for the online censorship that already exists in Iran, it said.
In August, Iran Focus reported that Iran would soon issue licences for websites operating from within its borders in an effort to place further controls on the contents being published online.
