US sanctions Iranian firm over internet censorship
The Treasury Department says that the technology company Arvan Cloud has a close and collaborative relationship with Iran's intelligence services.
WASHINGTON — The US Treasury Department announced new sanctions Friday targeting an Iranian company accused of supporting internet censorship.
The designations are the latest US effort to help counter the government’s suppression of dissent after protests erupted in September over the death in morality police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said Iran-based technology company Arvan Cloud has close relationships with Iran’s intelligence services and its executives have ties to senior Iranian officials.
Arvan Cloud also functions as a “key partner” of Iran’s Information and Communications Technology Ministry in the ministry’s development of a countrywide intranet that is being used to disconnect the Iranian people from the internet, the OFAC said.
