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Severe restrictions have been imposed in Iran on foreign and domestic media to ensure that coverage of Friday's presidential election is tightly controlled, the Guardian reports.

According to the article, international media watchdogs and journalists say most visa applications from foreign news organisations to cover the contest have been rejected or simply ignored.

Press TV, an Iranian channel, quoted an interior ministry official on Wednesday as saying that over 1,000 journalists will be covering the election. But a concerted effort is apparently under way to limit coverage, especially by western media – perhaps out of fear of a repeat of the protests that followed the disputed 2009 vote, the Guardian notes.

The Guardian's visa application was rejected on the grounds of what sources in Tehran described as a "blanket ban" on UK media. The only mainstream UK journalist known to have got a visa is Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow, who interviewed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the outgoing president, in 2009. The Financial Times, New York Times and Washington Post have correspondents based in Tehran but they operate under often severe restrictions, the article reads.