A report from Canadian researchers at  The Citizen Lab states that several websites belonging to the government of Syria, as well as media companies sympathetic to the Syrian government and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, are currently being hosted on iWeb servers based in Canada .

According to the report — entitled The Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbollah Web hosting in Canada – Websites belonging to the Syrian Ministries of Culture, Transport, Electricity and the Syrian patent office are currently being hosted byiWeb , a Montreal-based company, through a series of intermediary companies, one of which is called “Platinum Incorporated.”

 The report concludes:

   Websites of the Syrian government, including the Ministries of Culture, Transport, and others, are hosted on Canada-based web servers through intermediary companies, one of which, called “Platinum Incorporated,” advertises that it has co-location servers in Canada.

  The Syrian TV station Addounia TV, which is sanctioned by Canada and the European Union for inciting violence against Syrian citizens, uses Canada-based web servers to host its website.

  The website for Al-Manar -- the official media arm of the Lebanese political party,
Hezbullah -- is hosted on Canada- and US-based web servers and employs Canada-based web servers to stream its TV broadcast globally. Al-Manar satellite broadcasts have been banned by the US, France, Spain, and Germany as well as the European Union. The United States includes Al-Manar on its Specially Designated Nationals List, a list of entities with which U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing, and the assets of which are blocked. Canada currently classifies Hezbullah as a terrorist organization.

  There are legal questions concerning the provision of web hosting services to each of these organizations. As the Syrian government, Addounia TV, and Hezbullah are all subject to Canadian sanctions, services provided by Canada-based hosting providers to these entities may fall within the scope of the sanctions.

Addounia TV, a Syrian television station which has been sanctioned in the past by both the Canadian government and the European Union for inciting violence against Syrian citizens, is also making use of Canadian Web servers owned by iWeb.

We will update this post shortly.