US Government 'SEIZES' Website Of Iran's Press TV & Other Media Outlets

[G.L.R.]

US government 'SEIZES' website of Iran's Press TV, multiple other media outlets      

22 Jun, 2021

US authorities have apparently seized the web domains of Iran's international media outlets Press TV and Al-Alam, along with the Yemeni TV channel Al Masirah, run by the Houthi faction, an Iraqi Shia satellite channel, and others.

Visitors to the  PressTV.com and a number of other websites were greeted on Tuesday with a  notice that they were seized under US laws that allow civil and  criminal forfeiture of property involved in "trafficking in nuclear,  chemical, biological, or radiological weapons technology or material,  or the manufacture, importation, sale, or distribution of a controlled  substance." The seizure notice by the US Department of Justice also invokes a law governing presidential authority in dealing with "unusual and extraordinary threat; declaration of national emergency," which includes the Iran Nonproliferation Amendments Act of 2005 and the ironically named Iran Freedom Support Act of 2006. Al-Masirah is not owned by Iran, but by Ansarullah – the movement of the Houthis in Yemen, a faction the US has accused of being "proxies"  of Iran on account of them being Shia Muslims and resisting the  invasion of Yemen by Saudi Arabia since 2015. The TV channel is  headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon.

First the military threats and now media are being silenced

Meanwhile, the NGO  Yemen Solidarity Council  condemned "the deliberate silencing of the Yemeni voice by the American regime." In a statement released through the YSC, Al Masirah said it was "not surprised" by the apparent seizure, as it "comes from those that have supervised the most heinous crimes against our people." The"ban" on the website "reveals, once again, the falsehood of the slogans of freedom of expression and all the other headlines promoted by the United States of America, including its inability to confront the truth," the outlet said.  Another  site that displayed the seizure notice on Tuesday was that of Al Forat  Network, an Iraqi satellite TV outlet owned by a Shia Muslim cleric and  politician Ammar al-Hakim... In  the absence of any official word, there has been speculation that the  domains may have been hacked instead. Furthermore, the seizures appear  to have affected only the .com and .net domains that are under US  jurisdiction. PressTV remains available at the .ir domain.

Any wonder that those three countries are being targeted, while the others were taken over?

Washington's apparent move comes just a day after the newly elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi urged the US to lift all sanctions on Tehran and rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated by the Obama administration but unilaterally repudiated by President Donald Trump in 2018. Raisi called on the US to "live up to your commitments" in the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He also said the Iranian ballistic missile program was "not up for negotiation." Back in October 2020, the Trump administration seized 92 domains accused of being "fake news" outlets waging a "disinformation campaign"  on behalf of the IRGC. The seizure was overshadowed by sanctions  against the Iranian banking sector announced the same day, however.

US government 'SEIZES' website of Iran's Press TV, multiple other media outlets — RT World News
https://www.rt.com/news/527292-us-seizes-iran-presstv-websites/