{"id":228584,"date":"2026-01-09T05:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/228584\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:56:10","slug":"internet-access-cut-out-in-iran-after-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/228584\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet access cut out in Iran after protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s government cut off the country from the internet and international telephone calls Thursday night as a nighttime demonstration called by the country\u2019s exiled crown prince drew a mass of protesters<\/a> to shout from their windows and storm the streets. <\/p>\n

The protest that went on into Friday morning represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran<\/a> just before the country\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran\u2019s ailing economy. <\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran\u2019s toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks during a news conference, June 23, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo\/Thomas Padilla)<\/p>\n

FILE – Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran\u2019s toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks during a news conference, June 23, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo\/Thomas Padilla)<\/p>\n

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The demonstrations that have popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran continued Thursday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 42 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. <\/p>\n

The growth of the protests<\/a> increases the pressure on Iran\u2019s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference. Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns. <\/p>\n

Iranian state television\u2019s 24-hour news channel did not acknowledge the internet outage that cut the nation over 85 million people off from the world, highlighting instead food subsidies in their 7 a.m. Friday broadcast. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless. It remains unclear how Pahlavi\u2019s call will affect the demonstrations moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,\u201d wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran. <\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – A man sits as shops are closed during protests in Tehran\u2019s centuries-old main bazaar, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n

FILE – A man sits as shops are closed during protests in Tehran\u2019s centuries-old main bazaar, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country\u2019s potential transformational leaders.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s demonstration rallies at home and in street<\/p>\n

Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. local (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included \u201cDeath to the dictator!\u201d and \u201cDeath to the Islamic Republic!\u201d Others praised the shah, shouting: \u201cThis is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!\u201d Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out. <\/p>\n

\u201cIranians demanded their freedom tonight. In response, the regime in Iran has cut all lines of communication,\u201d Pahlavi said. \u201cIt has shut down the Internet. It has cut landlines. It may even attempt to jam satellite signals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to call for European leaders to join U.S. President Donald Trump in promising to \u201chold the regime to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on them to use all technical, financial, and diplomatic resources available to restore communication to the Iranian people so that their voice and their will can be heard and seen,\u201d he added. \u201cDo not let the voices of my courageous compatriots be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past<\/a> \u2014 particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn\u2019t clear whether that\u2019s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – Iranian protesters demonstrate against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on Oct. 9, 1978, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n

FILE – Iranian protesters demonstrate against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on Oct. 9, 1978, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n

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Iranian officials appeared to be taking the planned protests seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online claiming security forces would use drones to identify those taking part. <\/p>\n

Iranian officials have not acknowledged the scale of the overall protests, which raged across many locations Thursday even before the 8 p.m. demonstration. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed. <\/p>\n

The judiciary\u2019s Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.<\/p>\n

A deputy governor in Iran\u2019s Khorasan Razavi province told Iranian state television that an attack at a police station killed five people Wednesday night in Chenaran, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) northeast of Tehran. Late Thursday, the Revolutionary Guard said two members of its forces were killed in Kermanshah.<\/p>\n

Iran weighs Trump threat<\/p>\n

Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests<\/a> in recent years. As sanctions tightened<\/a> and Iran struggled after the 12-day war<\/a>, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran\u2019s theocracy. <\/p>\n

It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned<\/a> last week that if Tehran \u201cviolently kills peaceful protesters,\u201d America \u201cwill come to their rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/p>\n

FILE – In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/p>\n

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Speaking to talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Trump reiterated his pledge. <\/p>\n

Iran has \u201cbeen told very strongly, even more strongly than I\u2019m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they\u2019re going to have to pay hell,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

Trump demurred when asked if he\u2019d meet with Pahlavi. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI think that we should let everybody go out there, and we see who emerges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi<\/a> remains imprisoned by authorities after her arrest in December. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince Dec. 28, 2025, the people of Iran have taken to the streets, just as they did in 2009, 2019,\u201d her son Ali Rahmani said. \u201cEach time, the same demands came up: an end to the Islamic Republic, an end to this patriarchal, dictatorial and religious regime, the end of the clerics, the end of the mullahs\u2019 regime.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s government cut off the country from the internet and international telephone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105611,124712,114,54,184,122,124713,85,123,87,20889,46,124711,124709,124710,238,5468,21454,12526,126],"class_list":["post-228584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-ali-rahmani","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-general-news","tag-hugh-hewitt","tag-il","tag-internet","tag-iran","tag-iran-government","tag-israel","tag-lech-walesa","tag-narges-mohammadi","tag-nate-swanson","tag-politics","tag-protests-and-demonstrations","tag-reza-pahlavi","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}