Iran denies internet shutdown

With reports that Iran is set to restrict access to the internet by August, equally fervent denials are beginning to circulate.

According to news agency AFP, the initial statement — which supposedly came from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology actually had nothing to do with it.

In a statement, the ministry said ”The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry”. It added that it was “completely baseless,” and that it served only, “the propaganda wing of the West and providing its hostile media with a pretext emanating from a baseless claim”.

Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology Reza Taghipour was reported to have said that the country was going to replace services such as Google, Yahoo!, and Hotmail with its own internal search engines and email services.

Taghpour apparently made the remarks in an interview in which he also said that “All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August.”

Iran’s denials do not, however, mean that Iran is scuppering its plans for a national Intranet. According to TheNextWeb, the system is already in beta testing and includes a search engine called “Ya-Haq”, which translates as “Calling God”.

The uncertainty lies in whether or not the country will permanently kill of access to the web — hardly outside the realms of possibility given that it frequently blocks access to sites. The latest site to be blocked by the Iranian government is that of the 2012 London Olympic Games.