Iran announced on Tuesday that the US authorities had confiscated several state-linked news websites for unknown reasons.
While American authorities did not immediately acknowledge the seizures, they came amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran over Tehran’s now-shattered nuclear deal with Western powers.
In his first news conference after winning the election, the Islamic Republic’s president-elect, judiciary leader Ebrahim Raisi, took out a hard-line stance. He said he would not meet with Vice President Joe Biden and that any further talks with the West over Tehran’s ballistic missile program and support for regional militias were off the table.
According to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, a number of websites have been taken offline after being seized by the US Department of Justice.
State television’s English-language arm, Press TV, as well as the Yemeni Houthi rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel and Iranian state television’s Arabic-language channel, Al-Alam, were among the Iranian state-linked websites that abruptly went offline with what appeared to be US seizure notices.
The FBI seized the website of the Al-Masirah satellite news channel, which is owned by the Houthis. The group claimed in a statement that the site’s closure came without warning, but that the channel would continue its purpose of exposing American and Israeli crimes of piracy against our country by all means necessary.
The websites were confiscated as part of an investigation by the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Export Enforcement, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the notice.
The Associated Press spoke with Marzieh Hashemi, a popular American-born anchorwoman for Press TV, who said the channel was aware of the seizure but had no further details.
She explained, “We’re simply trying to find out what this means.”
