Iran Shuts Out Porn, Dissent Web Sites

Iran is blocking access to Web sites containing pornographic material and dissent against the country’s Islamic establishment, an official said Tuesday.

More than 140 Web sites promoting dissent, dancing and sex have been blocked since the crackdown began last month, said Farhad Sepahram, a Telecommunications Ministry official.

Religious hard-liners are increasingly worried about Iranians’ access to information from the outside world, apparently concerned that communications are playing a role in stirring reform sentiment such as the recent anti-government protests by young people.

Sepahram said most of the blocked Web sites belong to opposition groups. They include one run by Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and one by Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Iran’s first elected president after 1979 who now opposes the cleric-dominated establishment.

Also blocked are the Voice of America’s Persian-language service and radiofarda.com, a U.S.-financed Persian-language audio program.

Washington cut off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 after militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It has also imposed trade sanctions on Iran, which it accuses of aiding terrorist groups.

Sepahram said his ministry is also blocking pornographic sites run by Iranians from outside the country, but he acknowledged that it is impossible to close access to all sex-related sites.

He said the list of sites to be blocked came from the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, an non-elected body controlled by hard-line clerics.

The council was set up by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution. Reformist President Mohammad Khatami is the chairman, but most members are appointed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor, and conservatives outnumber reformists on the panel.

Khatami was elected on promises to loosen social and political life, but Khamenei’s unelected establishment has hindered the president’s efforts to deliver greater freedoms.

Hanif Mazrouei, the son of a reformist legislator, predicted that the crackdown will fail.

“In the 1980s, the government banned videos. In recent years, it went on to impose restrictions on satellite dishes, but none worked,” he said. “Blocking Web sites is more difficult to do. They can’t deny a nation impatient for change from information they like to know.”