Iran may lift its nationwide internet blackout within days after using sweeping restrictions to crush the biggest anti government protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A senior lawmaker said top security bodies will decide on restoring access once they judge that security conditions are appropriate.
Authorities largely shut internet and international phone lines as unrest spread across the country from late December, only allowing a heavily filtered connection in recent days. Monitoring group Netblocks said national connectivity remains very low, with a controlled filternet now letting some messages through.
An Iranian official told reporters that the verified death toll from the protests has passed 5,000, including about 500 security personnel, with some of the worst violence in Kurdish areas in the northwest. Rights groups abroad also say thousands were killed, citing reports of protesters hit by pellets in the face and chest that caused blindness and organ damage.
State TV has reported that arrests are continuing in cities including Tehran, Kerman and Semnan, and claims some detainees are agents of alleged Israeli terrorist groups. Officials insist security forces were responding to armed crowds backed by foreign enemies, while opponents accuse them of firing on peaceful demonstrators.
The unrest and crackdown prompted repeated threats of military intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump, though he has since toned down his rhetoric. Gulf Arab states have engaged in intensive diplomacy with Washington and Tehran to avoid a wider regional escalation.
In a sign of the authorities’ vulnerability, state television was briefly hacked on Sunday, airing speeches by Trump and exiled royal Reza Pahlavi calling for an uprising. The segment ran under a banner reading the real news of the Iranian national revolution before normal programming resumed.
Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee chair Ebrahim Azizi said the timing of a full internet return will be set by security councils. Another hardline lawmaker, Hamid Rasaei, argued that officials should have acted earlier on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s warnings about lax cyberspace controls.
Pahlavi, the U.S. based son of Iran’s last shah, has emerged as a prominent opposition figure and says he hopes to return to Iran. Analysts say it remains difficult to gauge how much real support he commands inside the country despite his high profile abroad.
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