Iran Blocks New U.S. 'Virtual Embassy'

FOX News

WASHINGTON – The U.S. launched a "virtual embassy" for Tehran in a bid to reach out to ordinary Iranians isolated by strict censorship -- but it was promptly blocked by the Islamic regime.

The "Virtual U.S. Embassy Tehran" is an opportunity for engagement between the peoples of Iran and the United States in the absence of direct diplomatic contacts, the State Department said Tuesday.

"This is a platform for us to communicate with each other -- openly and without fear -- about the United States, about our policies, our culture and the American people," US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

The virtual embassy provides information via a website, Facebook and Twitter. Early postings included several interviews with Clinton and a YouTube video message from President Barack Obama to mark Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, released in March.

But the website address, http://iran.usembassy.gov/, was inaccessible inside Iran, instead showing a message in Farsi saying, "In accordance with computer crime laws, access to this website is not possible," AFP reported.

The State Department said the virtual embassy was "just the first of many ways" it planned to challenge the Iranian regime's curbs on free speech and information.

"Outreach efforts like these are essential to bringing information and alternative viewpoints to the Iranian people, especially as the Iranian regime continues its efforts to control the flow of information to and from the Iranian people," spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

The website was given short shrift by the Iranian regime, which dismissed it as work of "the Great Satan," AFP reported.

"The opening of the virtual embassy by the US is a new deception by the Great Satan," Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission, was quoted as saying. "The Iranian nation will not be fooled by this deception."

The launch came a week after the British embassy in Tehran was ransacked by hard-line regime supporters, triggering widespread condemnation and prompting Britain to expel Iran's diplomats from London.

Diplomatic ties between the US and Iran were severed in the wake of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, which saw a revolutionary student group occupy the US embassy in Tehran and hold 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.