Syrian authorities have blocked access to 160 dissident websites since 2000 as part of a drive to censure the press and control Internet use, a free speech organization said on Tuesday.

Security services have stopped access to "160 sites run by Kurdish political parties, opposition groups, newspapers -- particularly from Lebanon -- human rights, Islamic and civil society organisations," said the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression.

"The campaign ... is on the increase," SCMFE president Mazen Darwish said.

"It is the start of a policy of censuring the press and aims to control Internet users," who are increasingly using this forum to comment on Syrian politics."

Several sites have recently been blocked, said the group, mentioning Akhbar Suria, which published photos showing where Hizbullah military chief Imad Mughnieh was assassinated by a car bomb in Damascus in February.(AFP)