US Justice Department on Wednesday took over 33 media websites owned by Iranian government, which were hosted on domains based in the United States

The Justice Department announced that it had impounded three Kataeb Hezbollah (an Iraqi group)’s websites also as they were being run in violation of the sanctions.

When you open websites of Press TV, Al-Alam or TV channel of Yemen’s Huthis, Al-Masirah, it shows a statement which reads, “It has been seized by the United States Government” with logos of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Commerce Department.

The American government has placed sanctions on the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC) and the Iranian websites seized by the US were owned by IRTVU and controlled by IRGC. So, since no US company could have business with the sanctioned entities therefore the websites were seized.

AFP reported that Bahrain’s LuaLua TV, a channel run by opposition groups with offices in London and Beirut, was also frozen by the US.