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The removals come as world powers seek to revive Tehran’s shattered 2015 nuclear deal, and just days after Iran’s hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi won the election. On Monday, Raisi, known for his hostility to the West, took a hard line at his first press conference. He ruled out the possibility of meeting with President Joe Biden or negotiating Tehran’s ballistic missile program and support for regional militias – concerns the Biden administration wants to address in future talks.
Iran provides support to armed groups in the region, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, while seeking to exert influence in faraway regions and confront its opponents.
Visiting the headlines of a handful of websites, including Press TV, the arm of Iran’s English-language state television, the Houthi-run Yemeni news channel Al Masirah, and Iran’s Arabic-speaking Al-Alam channel, issued a federal notification. . It said the websites were seized “as part of law enforcement action” by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Export Law Enforcement and the FBI.
The US government also took over the domain name of the news site Palestine Today, which reflects the views of Gaza-based Islamist armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and redirected the site to the same takedown notice.
The Yemeni rebel group Al Houthi announced that its Al Masirah satellite channel has stopped working without prior notice. She said that the channel will continue its mission of “confronting American and Israeli piracy against our nation by any means.”
Press TV, launched in June 2007, is an English-language radio service of the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran. There are no private television or radio stations in Iran. Satellite dishes, while common, are also illegal. This leaves IRIB with a monopoly on the local airwaves.
Marzieh Hashemi, a prominent Press TV anchor who was arrested in 2019 as a primary witness in an unspecified criminal case and appeared before a grand jury in Washington, told The Associated Press that the channel was struggling to “know the causes” of the seizure.
While broadcasting in Iran, Press TV focuses mostly on international affairs through the lens of how leaders in the Islamic Republic see the world. Severe criticism of British and American foreign policy is common. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, IRIB has been in the hands of hardliners who support the Iranian government.
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