Eutelsat and Intelsat have already taken down Iranian TV transmissions coming from IRIB and Press TV. On November 8th the US government applied sanctions on certain named individuals connected to Iran’s broadcasting efforts, as well as criticising Iran’s deliberate jamming of its neighbour’s satellite transmissions and local Internet censorship policies.

The US State Department has specifically cited Iran’s Communications Minister Reza Taghipour after he was blamed for ordering the jamming of international satellite TV broadcasts and restricting Internet access, a State Department official said. The US was determined to stop the “Iranian government from creating an ‘electronic curtain’ to cut Iranian citizens off from the rest of the world,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance was also sanctioned for closing down newspapers and detaining journalists. The new designations resulted from an August 2012 act that came into force on Nov 8 and mean Americans are banned from doing any business with the targeted Iranians, who are also barred from travelling to the US.

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