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Iran was almost completely cut off from the internet on Thursday, according to monitoring groups, as the Islamic republic struggled to contain the most serious wave of protests in years.
Videos posted on social media purported to show large crowds of demonstrators taking to the streets in Tehran and other cities on Thursday evening, as the protests appeared to pick up momentum at the beginning of the Iranian weekend. It was not possible to independently verify the videos.
“We are seeing the system struggling to respond to a momentous wave of protest that have only gained momentum since they began,” said Sanam Vakil, head of the Middle East programme at Chatham House. “Without significant structural changes they will be at a dead end.”
NetBlocks, an internet monitor, said Iran was in the “midst of a nationwide internet blackout” following “a series of escalating digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country”.
Internet access has previously been restricted during periods of unrest.
The latest demonstrations began in late December after shopkeepers in Tehran shut their stores to protest rising prices and have since spread across the country to provincial cities and towns.
They come at a time when the Islamic republic is at its most vulnerable in decades as it grapples with a confluence of intensifying external and domestic pressures.
The rial has lost more than 40 per cent of its value, fuelling soaring inflation, since Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June, assassinating top military commanders and nuclear scientists, destroying much of its air defences and bombing its nuclear facilities.
The US briefly joined the war to bomb Iran’s main nuclear facilities, and President Donald Trump has warned that his administration was “locked and loaded” and ready to come to the “rescue” of protesters if the Iranian authorities kill them.
Iranian state media have confirmed at least 17 deaths since the protests erupted last month, some of whom were members of the security forces, along with dozens of arrests, though the exact toll remains unclear.
Eurasia Group said in a note that the regime was “likely to weather the current bout of unrest — as it has done in the past”.
But it added that with “no remedy for the underlying causes, it is likely the demonstrations will continue, with significant risk that unrest escalates to the point that a more violent crackdown ensues”.
The protests are the most serious domestic threat to the regime since 2022, when a woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab and died in custody.
More than 300 people were killed during a crackdown on those demonstrations, according to Amnesty International.
The current wave of protests, which have included angry anti-regime slogans, including chants of “death to the dictator”, have become a crucial test for President Masoud Pezeshkian, who came to power about 18 months ago vowing to reform the economy and make life easier for ordinary Iranians.
Pezeshkian’s government has taken steps in a bid to assuage protesters, meeting business leaders over their concerns and appointing a new central bank governor to try to restore “economic stability”.
But many Iranians are increasingly disillusioned and angry and are intensifying their calls for change from a theocratic leadership that has fewer tools available to manage the crisis given the country’s economic malaise and subdued oil prices.
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