Sunday, December 6, 2009

News from Iran Limited - Updated

For our readers' information: the Internet access to most of Iran's non-governmental sites has been cut and general Internet traffic has been severely slowed down in the country, affecting Twitter and other news dissemination sites. It is believed the government has limited and slowed the access to the Internet ahead of the expected nationwide demonstrations on Monday, marking the Student Day- 16 Azar.

UPDATE (late Sunday Tehran time): For some periods on Sunday, the Internet connection was completely shut down in Tehran. Throughout the day, the connections slowed to a crawl. AP reports that Internet service providers in Tehran have told the news agency that the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch. The government is slowing down the Internet traffic to stop news dissemination within Iran and to the outside world in anticipation of Monday's expected 16-Azar nationwide demonstrations.

UPDATE: AP confirms that the government has suspended accreditation for journalists working for international media in Iran from Monday to Wednesday.

UPDATE: Those trying to access the popular Balatarin site in Iran are redirected to the pro-government Sabz Nabavi website (TehranBureau, 0320 Monday Tehran time).

2 comments:

Mark Pyruz said...

Nader: As of Sunday 17:30 Iran time, I'm having no problems whatsoever accessing Iranian non-governmental blogs and forums (with .ir URLs).

Are you saying internet users in Iran are being blocked from most sites? If you are, I must report I'm seeing current, unimpeded postings on at least one non-government Iranian forum (again, with a .ir URL) which is a persian language site, with nearly all its users residing in Iran.

The Green websites and related facebook sites are still up; they've not been hacked.

Any additional info?

Nader Uskowi said...

Mark,

Two reliable sources of our blog have left phone messages that access to Internet is very spotty and extremely slow, at least in Tehran. It's great that the forum you're referring to is operating normally. Of course, as before, the coverage citywide is different from area to area, even bloc to bloc. No sites have been hacked, but when the access is slow, news cannot get out as normal.