Iran: The Internet and Women

On one level one can only despair at the way Iran - and indeed other nations in the Middle East - treat their women.

Yahoo! News reports:

"Iranian authorities have blocked access to several websites and blogs of women's rights advocates and journalists critical of the government, a press report said on Tuesday.

The move follows a new directive sent out by a committee tasked with identifying illegal websites to Internet service providers, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper said without giving a source.

"There seems to be a tougher approach this time as some sites and weblogs belonging to women's rights and human rights campaigners, writers critical of the government and well-known journalists" have been singled out, it said.

Internet providers in Iran have in recent years been told to block access to hundreds of political, human rights and women's sites and weblogs for expressing dissent or deemed to be pornographic and anti-Islamic.

The report said several feminist websites including Meydaan-e Zanan (Women's Field), Kanoon Zanan Irani (Iranian Women's Centre), Shir Zanan which covers women's sporting events, and "Change for Equality" have been blocked."

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