GMail Reported Blocked by Iran

This story was written by Elinor Mills of CNET News.com.

Gmail appeared to be unavailable to some users in Iran on Wednesday, possibly as part of a government crackdown designed to suppress anti-regime demonstrations scheduled for Thursday.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Iranian government said it would shut down Gmail and replace it with a national e-mail system.

"It is not a question. I am a journalist from tehran. Tonight we can't open Gmail," someone wrote on the English-language Gmail help forum.

Others reported on the site that they couldn't access Gmail for several days, and several posts referred to Buzz, a new social service within Gmail that Google launched this week. But it is unclear exactly when the posts were made because there are no time stamps. One post offers a date using the Persian calendar for the day but not the year.

One person posted a link to a site in Farsi, ITIran.com, that Google Translate translated to "Gmail being blocked by people to lead national e-mail."

That item quotes "S. Mhdyvn, CEO of information technology," who appeared to be talking about a national e-mail system. That would appear to support the Wall Street Journal report saying Iran's telecommunications agency announced a "permanent suspension" of Gmail in favor of a national e-mail service to be rolled out soon.

Google representatives did not immediately have comment on the matter.

The Iranian government was doing security sweeps and warning citizens not to participate in anti-government protests planned to mark the anniversary of the Islamic Republic on Thursday, the newspaper reported.

The government also has been confiscating satellite dishes and mobile phones, detaining mothers of people killed in street protests after the election last June, the report said, citing news services and opposition Web sites. It also said the government recently ordered death sentences for a group of arrested protesters.

In December, the Journal reported that family members of Iranian Americans had been arrested or questioned because of anti-Iranian government posts on Facebook by members outside the country.

In other instances, Iranians living abroad were forced to log in to their Facebook accounts or reveal passwords to government officials as they arrived at the Tehran airport and some even had their passports confiscated because of their political posts, according to the newspaper's report.

By Elinor Mills