Iran blocks ‘dollar’ in SMS
Mobile phone text messages containing the word "dollar" and a website showing real-time exchange rates were blocked yesterday in Iran, as authorities struggled to reverse a dramatic slide in the value of the Iranian rial, AFP reported.
Some Iranian media outlets noticed that SMS, or text messages, containing the word "dollar" - in either English or Farsi - were not being sent over the cellular network.
Foreign journalists in Tehran, including AFP, verified the text-message block, which also affected the Farsi word for "foreign exchange."
The ISNA news agency questioned Iran's two cell network operators, MCI and Irancell, about the block. Both asserted that they were not filtering the messages.
The text message block added to the inaccessibility over the past week of the mesghal.ir website that shows the rial's value against world currencies.
The rial has lost more than a third of its value against the dollar in the past three months, much of it in an accelerated slide observed in the first days of 2012 after the US enacted a law targeting Iran's central bank.
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