The U.S. Department of Justice seized 36 Iranian-linked news websites and their domains, accusing them for spreading disinformation.
33 of the seized websites are owned by a U.S.-based company, but were used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), which the agency said were among the components of the Iranian government targeting the U.S. with disinformation campaigns. The 3 remaining websites were operated by one of the main Iran-aligned Iraqi militia groups, Kata’ib Hizballah.
The sites seized included Press TV, the Iranian government's main English-language television channel, and Al-Alam, its Arabic-language equivalent.
According to the statement, IRTVU was designated as a so-called "Specially Designated National" (SDN) for being owned or controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The department said that the SDNs are not allowed to offer services, including having websites and domain services, in the U.S. without a license. IRTVU did not obtain a license prior to utilizing the domain names, it said.
And as for Kata’ib Hizballah, the group has been for more than a decade, considered by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.
The move by the U.S. government happens amid the continued tensions between Tehran and Washington.
In response, the Iranian state-run news agency IRNA called the seizures as “an illegal act” and “terroristic policy” against independent media.
Iranian President's Chief of Staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, said the condemned the seizures.
As a result of this seizures, notices that included the seals of the FBI and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, appear on those 26 websites.
The notices inform visitors that the websites they are visiting were seized “as part of law enforcement action.”
This isn't the first time that the U.S government has seized the domain names of websites it accuses of spreading disinformation.
Previously, when Donald Trump was President of the U.S., the Department of Justice had seized 92 domains that it said were used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to spread disinformation and propaganda.
The following month, the DOJ said it had seized 27 additional domain names that were “unlawfully used to further a global covert influence campaign.”
But this seizures comes just days after Ebrahim Raisi was elected as Iran's President.
Ebrahim Raisi, best known as an Iranian conservative and principlist politician, has in the past served in several positions in Iran's judicial system. And in the 1980s and 1990s. he was the Prosecutor and Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran, where he was responsible for the execution of thousands of political dissidents and prisoners.
At this time, Ebrahim Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control in accordance with Executive Order 13876.
He is accused of crimes against humanity by international human rights organizations and United Nations special rapporteurs.
In his first news conference, he said that the U.S. has violated the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, and called on President Joe Biden to return to the agreement.
Ebrahimi Raisi called on Biden to lift all sanctions before adding that Iran's ballistic missile program "is not up for negotiation."
The election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iranian President brings a new face to the Iranian politics, and also more problems to the the Biden administration that hopes to ease tensions with Iran while reining in its nuclear ambitions.
