{"id":396851,"date":"2026-01-09T08:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396851\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:15:08","slug":"iranian-government-shuts-down-internet-as-violent-crackdown-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396851\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian government shuts down internet as violent crackdown continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protests broke out in several cities across Iran<\/a> on Thursday despite an ongoing violent crackdown<\/a> by security forces that has left dozens dead and led authorities to shut down the internet nationwide in an attempt to stifle the unrest.<\/p>\n

Shops were also shuttered in the main bazaar of Tehran, the capital, and smaller cities Thursday, according to video posted online, as inflation soared<\/a> and the Iranian currency crashed<\/a> against the U.S. dollar this week.<\/p>\n

The protests, which started for economic reasons, have now taken on a more political tone with demonstrators chanting slogans against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, the highest authority in the country, in Tehran and other cities. <\/p>\n

NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, said on X<\/a> that the internet had been completely cut off across the country by early evening Thursday local time, a tactic that officials have used during past protests to prevent unrest from spreading and videos of violence leaking out of the country, analysts say. <\/p>\n

Iran \u201cis now in the midst of a nationwide internet blackout,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

\"Protests-in-Iran-January-8\"Iranians protesting in Kermanshah on Thursday.Kamran \/ Middle East Images \/ AFP-Getty<\/p>\n

Authorities have struggled to contain the protests after 12 days, and top officials have given conflicting messages about how to deal with the unrest. <\/p>\n

President Masoud Pezeshkian<\/a> has offered conciliatory messages and said protesters\u2019 concerns should be addressed, while hard-liners have issued stern warnings: The head of Iran\u2019s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said Wednesday that there would be \u201cno leniency for those who help the enemy against the Islamic Republic.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group, said in a telephone interview: \u201cWe know the president doesn\u2019t really control the situation at times like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe security and intelligence forces are going to do what they always do, and they are starting to do it more systematically,\u201d Ghaemi said. \u201cAnd Ejei made it very clear yesterday that this is the end, the last call, to wrap it up, and they\u2019re coming for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Security forces have not held back, according to rights groups. Amnesty International said in a news release Thursday that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the police \u201chave unlawfully used rifles, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannon, tear gas and beatings to disperse, intimidate and punish largely peaceful protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials have also tried to cover up the killings, Amnesty said, by forcing the families of some victims to give interviews to state media blaming accidents or other protesters. Authorities have threatened secret burials if family members do not comply. <\/p>\n

The group added that there have been \u201cmass arbitrary arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norwegian-registered Kurdish watchdog group that monitors rights violations across Iran, reported Thursday<\/a> that security forces have killed 42 people during the protests, including six children. <\/p>\n

The violent crackdown may come at a price. Last week, President Donald Trump<\/a> threatened to intervene in Iran, without providing details, if more protesters were killed. He repeated the threat Thursday in an interview on \u201cThe Hugh Hewitt Show.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots \u2014 they have lots of riots \u2014 if they do it, we\u2019re going to hit them very hard,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He also added a message for the protesters. \u201cYou should feel strongly about freedom. There\u2019s nothing like freedom. You\u2019re brave people. It\u2019s a shame what\u2019s happened to your country. Your country was a great country,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s warning presents an additional challenge for Iranian authorities who have not been able to contain the unrest in the streets and were alarmed by the surprise U.S. capture last weekend of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, a close ally. <\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s threat put the system in a catch-22: If the protests grow, it might resort to increasing levels of violence to subdue them. But if they resort to greater violence, they run the risk of U.S. involvement,\u201d Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said in a text message response to questions. <\/p>\n

Videos that circulated online Thursday show large gatherings of protesters in the major cities of Tehran, Mashhad \u2014 long considered a conservative bastion of government support \u2014 and Isfahan, as well as smaller ones such as Kermanshah in western Iran, where demonstrators chanted \u201cDeath to dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n

A video verified by NBC News that circulated Thursday shows a white sedan ramming into a group of security forces walking on a street in Mashhad. <\/p>\n

A video posted by BBC Persian appears to show security forces firing at protesters in the western Iranian city of Dezful, while another video verified by NBC News shows a large fire at the offices of the state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, in Isfahan. <\/p>\n

So far, neither side is backing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still off-ramps for reconciliation for the system to avert a full-on bloody revolution,\u201d Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in a telephone interview. \u201cAnd we may start seeing indications and signs of that as the protests go into their third, fourth weeks. But we\u2019re not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protests broke out in several cities across Iran on Thursday despite an ongoing violent crackdown by security forces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-396851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}