Iranian Internet Access Once Down Returns
Iranian Internet Access Once Down Returns
(The Hosting News) – Throughout the world, various countries have sought to limit Internet access for their citizens, especially around politically volatile times in which a country’s government may be feeling heat from its own citizens.
Just a few days ago, Internet users in the middle-eastern country of Iran found their web access increasingly limited as they attempted to log in to American-based web services including Facebook, Yahoo! mail and Gmail.
Last Thursday, limited Internet access in the country was chronicled in a report from the Washington Post which told the story of Iranian blogger Maysam who had noticed his inability to use sites including Facebook, despite Maysam’s reliance on what the Washington Post called a “special connection.”
Access to Facebook has been regularly blocked in Iran, but there’s a loophole to getting around the country’s firewall (most likely a virtual private network) which Maysam had been able to achieve, until recently.
Meanwhile, a report from AFP indicated that attempting to access some US-based services usually available in the country read, “Access to this page is a violation of computer crime laws.” While not all were necessarily blocked at all times, attempting access was reported to be extremely slow.
Over 30 million users were apparently hit by the limited Internet issue, according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency.
Now it appears that there’s finally some good news for Iranian Internet users. The four day downtime of such sites has ended with the Associated Press recently reporting that Iranian Internet users had indicated to the news agency that their services had returned today.
Limiting free speech rights by disabling Internet access has become all too common worldwide. Last year in June, various news agencies reported that Internet access in the country of Syria had been disabled following demonstrations by protestors in the country.
Meanwhile, similar instances were seen in other countries including Egypt during the 2011 revolution that ousted now former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Interestingly enough, the incident occurs during an important time for Iran. The country is set to hold parliamentary elections early next month.
Iranian Internet Access Once Down Returns
