As Iran elections approach, more internet restrictions are imposed

Shahrzadnews: In the run-up to the presidential elections in June, internet restrictions in Iran are even worse than usual. Access to international news agency websites and their television services has become virtually impossible, as it has to Iranian opposition groups.

A Tehran resident told Shahrzad News: “Internet connections suffer from constant disruption. I was trying to chat to someone on Skype on Tuesday, and the line was cut more than 18 times in half an hour. Connections are very slow, and even state-authorized national websites open very sluggishly. Connecting to Facebook is difficult too, and when I logged on I found I could not add text to my page. The VPN anti-filtering software I use seems to have lost its effectiveness and become quite useless.

Internet restrictions in Iran stem from the government’s attempts to monitor online communication between Iranians and the outside world, forcing them to use the state-controlled internet service instead. In line with this policy, in February this year the government licensed the communications ministry to market anti-filtering software in the hope that it would obtain full control of the market. This has led to the disabling of much of the software that facilitates free use of internet communication channels, such as the Viber free messaging service, which is available in most parts of Iran.