The decision, announced by French company Eutelsat and British company Arqiva, came as the European Union expanded its list of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

The blocked channels include Iran's flagship English-language Press TV news service and the Arabic-language al-Alam, both among the Islamic republic's most powerful outlets for disseminating the government's political and religious viewpoints.

Without mentioning Iran's censorship of many Western media outlets, the official Iranian reaction was that Europe had attacked its own values of freedom of speech.

''They must understand the time of censorship is over,'' said Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of Iran's state-run radio and television organisation, known as Voice and Vision. ''They want to prevent our views from being heard, but they will fail.''

Several of the blocked Iranian channels are now streaming over the internet.

In July, Mr Zarghami, who is directly appointed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was added to a list of sanctioned individuals by the EU over what it called ''human rights violations'' by his channels.

Iran routinely blocks the transmission of the Persian services of the Voice of America and the BBC, labelled opposition channels.

While satellite receivers and dishes are technically illegal in Iran, they are widely available across the country, where people have turned to channels offering Turkish and Latin American soap operas dubbed in Persian.

Iran's Press TV, a 24-hour English-language news channel started in 2007, said there had been ''a chorus of harsh criticism'' from viewers worldwide against the decision to stop its broadcasts.

NEW YORK TIMES