Iranian minister defends Internet censorship campaign

According to the online news portal, Rooz, Harandi said, “We have filtered Web sites only when they have published reports that contained insults and false charges against individuals or officials.”

The announcement comes as part of a growing trend of Internet censorship in the country that is being applied to sites that are openly critical of the government as well as conservative sites that usually support the government line.

In a recent move, Baztab, a conservative Web site affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was filtered for publishing reports critical of the administration.