Iran may shut down internet during election

daveschroeder writes: "The Iranian government might block private access to the Internet for the general legislative election on March 14, two Iranian news outlets reported Monday. In 2006, the authorities banned download speeds on private computers faster than 128 kilobytes per second. The government also uses sophisticated filtering equipment to block hundreds of Web sites and blogs that it considers religiously or politically inappropriate. Many bloggers have been jailed in the past years, and dozens of Web sites have been shut down. It would appear that Iran's own government is more a threat to the nation's internet connectivity than the fragility of the undersea cable network. (Slashdot readers may recall assertions, dismissed by undersea cable experts, that the cable cuts were a deliberate attempt to sever Iran's connectivity, which, contrary to popular belief, also never happened.)"

no news for you!

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Suppressing the media is important when you're trying to fix an election!
... okay, but seriously, WHY would you disable or decrease the amount of information available on election day? Are they afraid that people will change their votes?