Iran bans contact with 60 groups including BBC, HRW

Updated at: 1515 PST, Tuesday, January 05, 2010
TEHRAN: Iran has banned its citizens from having contact with 60 organisations including the BBC, Human Rights Watch and opposition website Rahesabz as well as US-funded broadcasters, state media have reported. The deputy intelligence minister in charge of external affairs said that the 60 blacklisted groups were suspected of being involved in efforts by Western governments to topple the Islamic regime as part of a "soft war" and that it was an offence to communicate with them. "Any kind of contact by individuals or legal entities with those groups involved in the soft war is illegal and prohibited," state media quoted the deputy minister as saying on Monday without giving his name. The blacklisted organisations also included US government-funded Voice of America and Radio Farda as well as US-based pro-monarchist satellite channels, Israeli public radio and the outlawed rebel People's Mujahedeen. The deputy minister also called on the public to avoid "irregular contacts with embassies or foreign nationals or centres linked to them".