Trump Regime Blocks Iran's Fars News.com

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Blocking Fars News English-language website is part of the Trump regime's war on Iran by other means, along with wanting truth-telling suppressed — how all totalitarian states operate.

I accessed Fars News.ir. It reported that the Trump regime's Treasury department blocked its .com domain, its .ir domain still accessible so far.

The news service got international service provider notification that "the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has included the news agency in its SDN list and ordered it to stop domain services to Fars News Agency (FNA)" — a flagrant free speech and press violation.

FNA is trying to rectify the situation. It's been operating under the registered name of Fars Press and Culture Institute.

I follow the site regularly for accurate reporting on major regional geopolitical issues, what's unavailable from Western establishment media.

I also watch Press TV daily, follow its truth-telling website, along with Tasnim News, Mehr News, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the Tehran Times, and other Iranian sites — delivering English language journalism the way it's supposed to be.

I strongly recommend avoiding the UK owned and controlled BBC, Qatar owned Al Jazeera, US public broadcasting and radio, the NYT and other print publications, along with what passes for television "news" in the US — all of it worthless rubbish.

Their mission is manipulating the public mind, filling it with mush, suppressing what's most important, serving powerful interests exclusively, operating as their press agents — truth-telling on major issues banished from their propaganda reports.

Speech, press, and academic freedoms in the West are eroding toward disappearing altogether, dark forces wanting truth-telling journalism prevented from exposing the falsified official narrative — all propaganda all the time on major issues, especially geopolitical ones.

FNA reported that action by the Trump regime's Treasury department flagrantly violates the UN Charter — the US Constitution's First Amendment also breached.

In response to what happened, Tehran University Professor Mohammad Marandi tweeted:

"Will western media defend freedom of speech? Will they admit the magnitude and significance of the protests in Baghdad yesterday?" 

"They will either remain silent or they will somehow justify the behavior of western regimes, as they wait for small pro-western protests to cling on to."

Establishment media march in lockstep with ruling Western regimes on major geopolitical and other issues, their reporting notably hostile toward nations on the US target list for regime change.

A quick Saturday AM Google search found no Western English language reports on the blockage of FNA by the Trump regime's Treasury department.

They've been one-sidedly hostile toward Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and others like them — supporting US high crimes instead of denouncing them.

Social media, Google and tech giants function the same way, operating as imperial agents, making them complicit in high crimes.

RT and Sputnik News reported on FNA's blockage. Will they be taken down next?

In 2018, following Trump regime orders, Facebook removed Telesur's English page twice without proper explanation — in January and August, unjustifiably saying:

"Telesur English (was) removed for violating our Terms of Use (sic)," adding:

"…Pages that are hateful, threatening or obscene are not allowed (sic). We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual (sic)." 

"If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account." 

In response at the time, I said the following on my FB page:

Facebook's war on truth-telling took down Telesur's page for featuring journalism the way it's supposed to be – what its censors oppose, agents of dark forces running the US.

Anti-social media Facebook is a censoring machine, flagrantly violating First Amendment rights, unaccountable for its criminality.

They took down my FB page before because I refused to voluntarily delete an article they wanted removed.

They'll likely take me down again, maybe next time permanently, wanting me and other independent journalists silenced.

They deleted a number of my articles and comments earlier, the way police states operate, wanting the message controlled, views contrary to the official narrative consigned to the memory hole, eliminating inconvenient truths.

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past," Orwell explained. 

He who controls the message controls groupthink, suppressing dissent, manipulating the public mind to reach consensus with the official narrative, wanting an obedient submissive public – distracted by bread and circuses.

Social and other establish media operate as a collective Ministry of Truth. Controlling the message is the defining feature of totalitarian rule.

Orwell earlier explained that "(u)npopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban."

"Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself (or herself) silenced with surprising effectiveness." 

"A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."

Orwell's remarks were before the television age, Internet and social media, dark forces today wanting control over their content.

They want state approved managed news misinformation and disinformation replacing truth-telling journalism.

Big Brother is no longer fiction. Dark forces watching us want views conflicting with theirs suppressed — their brave new world order unsafe and unfit to live in.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html