Besides Press TV; there are at least 6 additional regional websites that are currently displaying notices of seizure apparently uploaded by the US authorities.
The official website of Press TV (Presstv.com), an Iranian state-owned news and documentary network has been allegedly seized by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Hackread.com has learned.
The development has also been confirmed by the official and verified Twitter account of Press TV with more than 261.4K followers. Those visiting the website can see the notice of seizure apparently uploaded by the US law enforcement agencies.
“The domain Presstv.com has been seized by the United States Government in accordance with a seizure warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 981, 982, and 50 U.S.C. 1701-1705 as part of a law enforcement action by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Office of Export Enforcement (EE) and Federal Bureau of Investigation,” reads the message.
Homepage of PressTV.com domain:
Image: Hackread.com
On Twitter, Press TV has also acknowledged the seizure and tweeted that:
In what seems to be a coordinated action, a similar message appears on the websites of Iranian and regional television networks that claims the domains of the websites have been “seized by the United States Government.”
Furthermore, there are several other regional websites that have been displaying a notice of seizure for the last couple of hours. These sites include Iraq’s Al-Furat News Agency, Al-Alam News Network, which is an Arabic news channel broadcasting from Iran and owned by the state-owned media corporation the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
Additionally, the Yemeni news website of Al Masirah TV, LuaLua TV, a Bahraini opposition TV Channel, Palestine Today (Palestinian), and Karbala TV (Iraq) are also among the list of websites seized by the FBI.
- Press TV (Presstv.com)
- LuaLua TV (Lualuatv.com)
- Karbala TV (Karbala-tv.net)
- Al Masirah TV (Almasirah.net)
- Palestinian Today (Paltoday.tv)
- Al-Alam News Network (Alalamtv.net)
- Al-Furat News Agency (Alforatnews.com)
As for why these sites have been targeted and why the Office of Export Enforcement is involved in the seizure of state-owned media outlets is unclear. However, Hackread.com is keeping an eye on the situation and this article will be updated accordingly.
See also “Executive Order on Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries” signed by Joe “totally not fascism” Biden on June 9thhttps://t.co/t0T9Pfdqn8
— Richard Medhurst 🇸🇾🇵🇸 (@richimedhurst) June 22, 2021
At the time of publishing this article, PressTV’s .UK and .IR domains were online and accessible to visitors with normal content.
