Iran blocks US ‘virtual embassy’ website

Iran blocked a “virtual embassy” website less than 24 hours after
the State Department launched it on Tuesday, a State spokesman said Wednesday.

The
Associated Press reported
from Tehran Wednesday that the website could no longer be accessed in Iran.

{mosads}The U.S. has not
had an embassy in Iran since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.

The embassy website shuttering drew a quick rebuke from the
Obama administration.

“We condemn the
Iranian government’s efforts to deny their people the freedom to access
America’s recently launched Virtual Embassy Tehran,” Press Secretary Jay Carney
said in a statement. “The
Iranian government’s systematic efforts to deny information to its citizens—to
control what the Iranian people see and hear—is doomed to fail in a 21^st
century when technology is empowering citizens around the globe.”

Tensions between
Iran and the U.S. have risen in the past week after Iran
claimed it shot down an unmanned and captured it. The Senate also
passed an amendment last week by a 100-0 vote calling for sanctions against
firms and governments that do business with the Iranian central bank.

State Department
spokesman Mark Toner said that many Iranians can still access the website
through private networks that allow them to work around the government blocking
websites.

The embassy site,
which features a video on the home page from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is available in
both English and Farsi.