Background Speech in the Islamic Republic of Iran is heavily regulated. The limits to freedom of expression in Iran are grounded in the constitution and speech restrictions extend over a broad range of topics, including religion, immorality, social harmony and politics. In comparison...

Written in collaboration with Devin Gaffney. Following the anniversary of the Iran election protests on June 12th, Iranian reform protesters began accusing Twitter of censoring #iranelection when the hashtag did not trend on the site that day. Some protestors went so far...

Last week, as Iranian voters went to the polls to elect the country's next president, the Iranian government blocked access to number of political Web sites, as well as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Yesterday the OpenNet Initiative profiled the extent of this...

PDF Version Note: a newer version of this profile is available at Country Profiles: Iran. Overview Since 2000—in the midst of a media crackdown that has seen the judiciary close more than 100 publications, inspiring widespread self-censorship—the Islamic Republic of Iran has...

By Rob Faris and Rebekah Heacock The Internet and mobile phones have taken on a major role in Iranian politics over the last several months. As protests over the contested election results continue in Iran, the government has dramatically increased its control...

Iranians regained access to Facebook and Twitter following a one-day government-imposed ban last week, CNN News reports. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated that he had not called for the ban, adding that he believes “in maximum freedom of expression.” The...

Iran’s Internet censorship regime is generally accepted to be one of the most aggressive in the world, yet according to the New York Times, by autumn 2008, more than 400,000 Iranians were able to access an uncensored web thanks to a...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has just released a list of the ten worst countries in which to blog. Topping the list is Burma, followed closely by Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, and Egypt. In determining...

ONI has documented filtering in Iran in a number of studies over the past four years, demonstrating an increase in the extent of filtering. At the core of the issue is the impact of Internet filtering on the range...

ISPs in Iran were ordered to block Yahoo email, messenger, and group sites, reported Iranian Web site Norooznews.ir (Farsi). The site added that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology refused to acknowledge the reports of the blocking which went into effect...