NCRI– Britain, France and Germany called on the European Union to impose fresh sanctions on Iranian regime over its nuclear program, AFP reported late Sunday, citing diplomatic sources.
An EU diplomat told the French news agency that the foreign ministers of the three countries wrote to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton calling for tougher steps against Iranian regime.
“It is necessary that we sharpen the sanctions,” AFP quoted a western official as saying. The official confirmed the request by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
Iran: New crackdown on Internet freedom, Google blocked
NCRI – Iranian regime plans to block access of Iranian citizens to Internet, instead they will be connected to a domestic Internet network by which the regime controls their access to the web.
The announcement, made by Khoramabadi, a government deputy minister on Sunday, came as state television announced Google Inc’s search engine and its email service would be blocked “within a few hours”.
The semi-official ISNA news agency quoted him as saying “Google and Gmail will be filtered throughout the country until further notice,” without giving further details..
Iranian regime has one of the biggest Internet filters of any country in the world, preventing normal Iranians from accessing countless web sites. The websites expressing views considered anti-regime are also routinely blocked.
Iranians commonly overcome the government filter by using virtual private network (VPN) software that makes the computer appear as if it is based in another country. But officials have long spoken of creating an Iranian Internet system which would be largely isolated from the World Wide Web.
“In recent days, all governmental agencies and offices … have been connected to the national information network,” deputy communications and technology minister Ali Hakim-Javadi was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency affiliated to the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
The second phase of the plan would be to connect ordinary Iranians to the national network, he said.
