Iran Faces Internet Blackout as Protests Demanding Regime Change Escalate
The internet in Iran was severely disrupted on Thursday, as reported by monitoring organizations, amid widespread protests across various cities calling for the removal of the Islamic government. This internet outage occurred shortly after Iran’s judiciary and security leaders announced they would enforce strict actions against demonstrators. Nonetheless, these threats failed to dissuade protestors. In phone interviews, numerous witnesses recounted seeing large gatherings on Thursday night in neighborhoods throughout Tehran, the capital, and in other Iranian cities such as Mashhad, Bushehr, Shiraz, and Isfahan. The participants reflected a diverse demographic, encompassing men and women of all ages. Interviewees inside Iran requested anonymity, expressing concern over potential repercussions. One Tehran resident mentioned that the crowds were chanting, “Death to Khamenei,” in reference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with, “freedom, freedom.” These chants were audible from several blocks away in the well-off Shahrak Gharb neighborhood in Tehran, which had previously remained unengaged in the protests. Footage captured on Thursday night depicted government buildings ablaze nationwide, including in Tehran, as the protests intensified. While the demonstrations started off mostly peacefully in the early evening, they turned violent later at night in Tehran, with protestors setting fire to cars, structures, and items in the streets. A video verified by The New York Times displays flames in the streets of Kaj Square in the capital, where thousands of demonstrators congregated.
In Karaj, a suburb to the west of Tehran, a video authenticated by The Times showed protestors fleeing following the sound of gunfire, though it remains unclear whether the shots were fired by security forces. As the protests escalated, data concerning internet connectivity indicated a sudden and nearly complete decline in connection levels across Iran on Thursday afternoon, as reported by NetBlocks, an organization monitoring internet access, along with the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis database from the Georgia Institute of Technology. This data implies that Iran is nearly entirely offline. Iranian officials did not provide an immediate response regarding the cause of the internet blackout, but the government has a history of imposing similar restrictions during crises. Before the country’s 12-day conflict with Israel last June, Iran had restricted internet access, citing security needs to prevent Israeli infiltration. Such measures also hindered the flow of information to the global community. “The Iranian government employs internet shutdowns as a method of oppression,” stated Omid Memarian, a human rights expert from Iran and a senior fellow at DAWN, an organization based in Washington focusing on the Middle East. “Whenever protests reach a critical juncture, authorities sever the nation’s connection to the global internet to isolate demonstrators and restrict their communication with the outside world.” For decades, Iranians have protested against the authoritarian rule of the Islamic clerics, witnessing waves of repression throughout various uprisings. The most recent wave of protests commenced a week ago. Multiple opposition factions, including Kurdish political groups, the Coordination Council of Azerbaijani Parties, and Reza Pahlavi, son of the ousted Shah of Iran, had urged citizens in Iran to take to the streets. Mr. Pahlavi stated in a video message that individuals opposing the regime should gather at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Pro-democracy campaigners like Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi, currently incarcerated, asserted through a joint statement with 17 notable dissidents and filmmakers last week that the quest for democracy could not be stifled. A resident from the southern city of Bushehr mentioned that the gathering was so massive that security forces were compelled to retreat. An individual from Isfahan noted that as protestors marched, drivers honked their horns and waved, while residents in surrounding apartment buildings whistled in support. A resident of Sadeghiyeh, a middle-class area in Tehran, said that the crowd was increasing in numbers significantly. He reported that security forces discharged their firearms into the air and launched tear gas canisters, yet did not manage to disperse the demonstrators. He also remarked that some attendees were chanting, “Long live the Shah,” referencing the last monarch of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution. Ebrahim Azizi, who heads Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, shared on social media that the “Zionist regime”—referring to Israel—was instigating the protests. “The destabilization puzzle has been activated; a puzzle that the Iranian nation will not allow to be completed,” he added.
A senior government official, who preferred to remain unnamed, revealed in an interview that numerous officials were privately reaching out to each other, bewildered about how to manage the overwhelming protests. He suggested that the Revolutionary Guards Corps, typically responsible for protecting Iran’s borders rather than internal security, might soon take control. The slogans voiced by the crowd represented a variety of political perspectives but united under one goal: the demise of the Islamic regime. Amir Ali, a Tehran-based businessman aged 32, stated that he and a group of friends had joined the protests and chanted, “death to the oppressor, be it king or supreme leader,” as well as, “the street will prevail, the people will win.” Shima, a 52-year-old from Tehran, mentioned that she, along with her husband, teenage children, and elderly parents, protested together for the first time on Thursday night, chanting, “we are together, we are together, don’t be afraid,” and “clerics, get lost, the shah is returning.” With the protest movement expanding to cities throughout the nation, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of Iran’s judiciary, informed Iranian media that the protests were orchestrated by foreign adversaries and that the government would show no mercy. “This time it’s different. This time there are no justifications left,” he remarked. “The enemy has officially declared its support. I warn the populace and families that this time no one will be spared.” Amnesty International reported on Thursday that it had logged at least 28 fatalities among protestors in recent days, including minors. Other organizations that monitor human rights—HRANA, based in Washington, Iran Human Rights, located in Norway, and the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights—estimated the death toll to be over 40.
Amirparsa Neshat, an Iranian influencer and podcaster who advocates for the protests, was detained when security forces raided his residence in the middle of the night, as announced by Kaveh Rad, a lawyer and one of his relatives, on Instagram on Thursday morning. On Wednesday, a crowd of several hundred men broke into a Shia seminary for clerics training in Gonabad, vandalizing the facility and assaulting the clerics with “wood and batons,” according to a statement released by the seminar’s director, which was covered in Iranian media. “We, too, are protesting the high prices, but protests differ from riots; people must dissociate themselves from the rioters,” indicated the cleric, Hujjat al-Islam Ismaeil Tavakoli. Merchants and shopkeepers in the traditional bazaars in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad, and Kerman have closed their businesses to voice their dissatisfaction with the dire economic situation and the plummeting value of Iran’s currency, as per accounts from witnesses and reports in Iranian news outlets. These bazaars are central to the country’s commerce and economy, and continued strikes could potentially paralyze the economy.
Published: 2026-01-09 00:23:00
source: www.nytimes.com
