Reported by PMOI/MEK
Iran, April 20, 2019 – Sepahnews, the official website of the Iranian regime’s terrorist-designated Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), has been taken down and is inaccessible. The admins of this website, at the address of sepahnews.com, were hosted by the American company, Tucows.
The IRGC had emphasized official news and reports related to the “Revolutionary Guards’ missions, actions and positions will be published only on sepahnews.com” website.
The official IRGC website
It has been a few days since these admins have been inaccessible for users. Furthermore, Instagram has been busy closing a significant number of accounts affiliated to senior IRGC members and officials.
Google has also closed the official account and channel affiliated to PressTV, the Iranian regime’s main English language mouthpiece broadcasting reports for audience abroad.
Facebook added 20 groups, managed by three accounts only, were associated with the mullahs’ state TV and radio (IRIB). Facebook emphasized these groups were involved in coordinated efforts to spread fake news on Facebook and Instagram platforms.
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Following a series of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accounts being closed down by Instagram after the U.S. State Department’s decision to designate this entity as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), YouTube is taking action and has disabled the channel affiliated to the regime’s Press TV.
Press TV is considered Tehran’s main English language mouthpiece. The Fars news agency, affiliated to the IRGC, wired a report complaining that Google had issued no prior warnings. This disabling measure also covers the mullahs’ “HispanTV” channel on YouTube.
PressTV broadcast a television report on this subject referring to a message sent by Google saying this Google account has been disabled and cannot be reactivated due to its use of this account in manners that violate Google policies.
The channels of this network are currently viewable for the public yet the admins cannot publish new posts, the PressTV report adds.
According to this report, this is not the first case that these PressTV channels have been disabled or suspended on YouTube. The first such channel was opened back in December 2009 and Google shut it down in September 2013.
A short while later the mullahs’ regime launched a new channel, which was disabled two months later.
A third PressTV channel rendered a similar fate five months down the road. The last such PressTV channel had been active up to now.
In February, in a huge embarrassment for PressTV, one of their reporters and so-called documentary producers by the name of Marzieh Hashemi was arrested in the United States while boarding a domestic flight in St. Louis.
In March 2017, a court in London fined PressTV to pay 338,000 pounds ($435,000) in libel damages to a Member of the British Parliament.
The court ruled the Iran TV channel had falsely accused Conservative lawmaker Nadhim Zahawi in a July 2015 report of facilitating oil trades for the Islamic State (IS) militant group with Israel and European countries.
The court noted the libelous accusation against Zahawi was removed from Press TV's English-language website in August 2016.
But it said the false report had been heavily repeated elsewhere before it was taken down.
Press TV reportedly did not defend itself against the libel charge.
The London court initially ruled in December 2016 that Press TV was guilty of libel in the case.
PressTV is one of the mullahs’ tools in its psychological warfare against and demonization of the Iranian opposition group People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), spreading lies (fake news) on a wide scale to foreign audiences.
Following the U.S. State Department’s move to officially designate the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), Instagram has been continuously taking measures to close down accounts related to the mullahs’ IRGC.
On Friday, the account of IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani’s daughter was also closed.
Furthermore, the account related to a jihadi group known as the “Shaheed Baghaie,” related to the IRGC Basij branch in the Ahvaz Medical School, was closed.
The number of Instagram accounts closed in the past few days:
- Farhad Nazar, the former state police commander
- Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the IRGC
- Habib Shahsavari, IRGC commander in northwest Iran
- Mohammad Taghi Osanlu, commander of Fort Hamze in northwest Iran (two accounts)
- Abedin Khorram, commander of the IRGC’s “Ashura Corps”
- Ruhollah Nouri, deputy commander of the IRGC Ground Forces (two accounts)
- GholamAsgar Karimian, deputy training chief, IRGC Ground Forces
Instagram has also deleted IRGC-related posts in the account of Amir Abdullahian, special advisor to the regime’s Majlis (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani.
“Beginning on Tuesday morning, a number of Instagram accounts associated to a various military officials and even current/former government officials, including Mohammad Bagheri, head of the Armed Forces Chiefs of Staff; IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari; IRGC Ground Forces commander Mohammad Pakpour; IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani; IRGC deputy coordinator Ali Fadavi; IRGC deputy Hossein Salami; former Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and former state TV/radio chief Ezzatollah Zarghami, have been closed. Other accounts related to the IRGC and Quds Force have been closed in Instagram,” according to a Wednesday report published in the mullahs’ official news agency.
“The Instagram account of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) is active while the Instagram accounts of IRGC officials are closed due to the FTO designation,” the piece added.
