ICC Note:

“The Iranian National Security Ministry is targeting Farsi-language websites which do not adhere to strict Shi’ite Muslim theology. Among those hit in cyber-attacks is Mohabat News, which serves Persian Christians in Iran and surrounding countries,” Beliefnet reports.

By Rob Kerby

8/23/2011 Iran (Beliefnet) – The Iranian National Security Ministry is targeting Farsi-language websites which do not adhere to strict Shi’ite Muslim theology. Among those hit in cyber-attacks is Mohabat News, which serves Persian Christians in Iran and surrounding countries.

 “The most recent attack took place on august 19, 2011, in which the attackers overloaded the server of MohabatNews and made it to go down for three days,” reported the website. ”We are really sorry for the inconvenience. But now with God’s help we managed to transfer the website into a more secure server and we hope such incidents don’t happen again. Thanks for your tolerance.”

However tolerance is the last thing that the Iranian government has in mind. In February, cyber-attacks shut down MohabatNews for two days. The Iranian government has tried with varying levels of success to block access to the site. Although the Christian website is back up and operating from a server outside Iran, others are not.

The security ministry announced the successful elimination of an unspecified Internet network, which officials said had “conducted anti-religious cyberspace propaganda.” The ministry reported that members of that unnamed network had created a variety of web sites, blogs and chat rooms, which it used to spread “anti-religious” information.

In Iran “anti-religious” can mean anything from atheist to non-Shi’ite Islam.

The ministry reported that several people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the unspecified network. Allegedly the arrested parties admitted under police interrogation that their group’s activities were carried out with the assistance of several embassies of European countries, Israel, and members of the Baha’i community — all which are consider arch-enemies of the Iranian regime.

The statement did not specify what kinds of actions were undertaken.

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