Iran ? No YouTube.com in Iran.

The country has blocked access to the video-sharing Web site, and a media rights group is warning that Internet censorship in the Islamic state is on the rise.

Internet users who tried to call up the YouTube site Tuesday were met with the message, “On the basis of the Islamic Republic of Iran laws, access to this Web site is not authorized.”

The Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said YouTube had been blocked for the past five days. In its statement Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders warned that “censorship is now the rule rather than the exception” in Iran.

Iran’s Shiite cleric-run government regularly blocks opposition Web sites, including blogs, and the number of sites that bring up the “unauthorized” message has been increasing over the past year. Western news sites, however, are generally available.