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Facebook is restored in Iran

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iran unblocked Facebook just days after the popular social-networking Web site was banned, an Iranian news agency reported yesterday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iran unblocked Facebook just days after the popular social-networking Web site was banned, an Iranian news agency reported yesterday.

The Iranian Labor News Agency said the site was now accessible to ordinary Web surfers. The rescinding of the ban came a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied he was behind the decision to block the site, which has been used by his challengers to rally supporters for next month's presidential elections.

Reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister, was using Facebook to generate buzz for his campaign. According to the tersely worded news agency report, the site has been blocked and unblocked numerous times over the last few days.

A committee composed of representatives of the Interior Ministry, intelligence service, judiciary branch, and parliament decides which sites are ordered blocked, according to the news agency.

Iranian Internet service providers had long banned Facebook, making it inaccessible to dial-up and broadband users. Government officials feared it could be used by foreign services to recruit operatives or by activists to organize antigovernment protests.

But in January, after watching how activists elsewhere were using Facebook to promote opposition to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, Iranian authorities quietly lifted the ban.

More than one-third of Iranians use the Internet, according to the Internet World Stats market research site.

Despite strict controls, the Internet is quickly becoming an essential tool in Iranian politics.