Source of the photo: www.presstv.com
On June 22, 2021, a US official said that the US authorities have seized a range of Iran’s state-linked news websites, which they accused of spreading “disinformation” and alleging they were being operated in violation of US sanctions.
A number of 33 websites linked to Iran’s Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU) and three tied to Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia were seized, the Justice Department said in a statement.
On 22.10.2020 the IRTVU owned by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force was sanctioned.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the IRTVU in retaliation for alleged Iranian attempts to interfere in US elections and “sow discord among the voting populace by spreading disinformation online and executing malign influence operations aimed at misleading U.S. voters” the Justice Department said.
The 33 domains used by the IRTVU were owned by a US company, as were the three used by Kataib Hezbollah, it added.
On June 22, 2021, the visitors to several Iranian websites were greeted with a blue and red screen with a message that they had been “seized” under US law.
The message on the Press TV reads: “The domain presstv.com has been seized by the United States Government in accordance with a seizure warrant issued pursuant to 18 USC 981, 982 and 50 USC 1701-1705 as part of a law enforcement action by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement and Federal Bureau of Investigation“.
The same message appeared on the websites of al-Alam and al-Masirah, both 24-hour Arabic language news channels.
The U.S. Justice Department said the move against 36 sites, including state-run media, came in “response to the Iranian regime targeting the United States’ electoral process with brazen attempts to sow discord among the voting populace by spreading disinformation online and executing malign influence operations aimed at misleading U.S. voters.”
This article was edited using the data from Aljazeera.com, Theguardian.com, Bloomberg.com, Dw.com, Bloombergquint.com, and Aa.com.tr.
