Iran warns people who dare to defy internet blackout

Tehran at night amid the US-Israeli military campaign in Iran. Photo / Morteza Nikoubazl, NurPhoto, AFP

Iranian authorities were issuing warnings to people connecting to the internet in defiance of a communications blackout that had left the Islamic Republic largely cut off from the outside world, witnesses say.

Iran’s internet connectivity was currently running at “around 1% of ordinary levels”, monitor group Netblocks said on Thursday, leaving most Iranians struggling to access basic information, navigation tools or communication apps.

Those who had successfully connected using VPNs (virtual private networks) to circumvent the controls had received warnings over their phones.

“If you repeatedly connect to the international internet in the coming days, your line will be blocked and the necessary measures will be taken to refer your case to the judicial authorities,” the messages said.

A Tehran resident, who messaged AFP on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the “internet speed is very slow”.

“You can’t call and voice messages don’t get delivered. We can just text.”

Iran cut off internet access on Saturday after Israel and the United States launched airstrikes on the country which continued Thursday for a sixth day.

Calls from overseas to Iranian mobile phones or landlines were near-impossible, making the task of reporting on the conflict difficult for journalists who face tight controls while working in the country.

Inside Iran, simple tasks like checking in on relatives, driving with navigation tools such as Google Maps, or checking websites for information had become impossible.

Only the highly limited local intranet was available.

Israeli and US airstrikes have also repeatedly targeted Iranian state television and radio infrastructure.

Shima, a 33-year-old in Tehran with a sporadic internet connection, said she was helping friends by sending news to their relatives about life in the capital hit by waves of strikes.

“I need to call a lot of people, even strangers, on behalf of their families,” she told AFP.

‘Stressful’

Some Iranians had resorted to using illegal Starlink terminals, the Elon Musk-owned satellite-based internet provider that proved crucial for communication in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022.

“The internet situation here is abysmal,” a resident in Bukan in western Iran, who asked not to be named, said in a message sent to AFP.

“It connects and disconnects. The connection is slow so the VPNs don’t work.”

But Iran found ways of disrupting Starlink during national protests in January when a similar internet blackout was imposed for several weeks.

The country also cut the internet during last June’s 12-day war with Israel and during 2022 mass protests sparked by the death in custody of an Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini.

Awyar Shekhi, a member of the Norway-based Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, said their work documenting civilian deaths in the bombing or abuses by Iranian authorities had been complicated by severe communication problems.

“It’s a struggle for us right now, but it’s not the first time that we are facing a cutoff,” she told AFP.

“We’ve built our own networks to be prepared [for] such times to be able to get information through our sources when there is no internet.”

Iranian exiles like her were also struggling with the uncertainty.

“For Iranians in the diaspora, it’s stressful and they live with anxiety about their families, not knowing if they have been able to find shelter, or whether they have left their homes,” she said.

-Agence France-Presse