Iran’s Record Internet Block Stokes Fears Crackdown to Go On

(Bloomberg) -- Iran is enduring its most extensive internet blackout on record, activists say, raising fears that Tehran’s crackdown on protesters may persist despite assurances it would ease punishments.

The internet shutdown has lasted eight days, longer than the blackout during the country’s 2019 demonstrations, global internet monitor Netblocks said on Friday. 

The outage is continuing even as protests died down following a violent wave of repression, choking the flow of information coming out of the country and cutting off Iranians from the rest of the world. Nearly 3,500 people have died and at least 20,000 have been arrested in the demonstrations since late December, according to Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group. Other estimates suggest the number of fatalities may be significantly higher.  

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pledged on Wednesday not to execute protesters, after US President Donald Trump raised fears of a military strike by urging Iranians to continue opposing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule and saying “help is on the way.” 

While the threat of military action remains, Trump on Friday tempered his rhetoric by thanking the Iranian leadership for suspending executions. 

“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” he said in a social media post.

Elon Musk’s Starlink, a satellite internet service that works separately from the national telecommunications network, also agreed to waive its subscription fee for Iranians after Trump called on the company to help restore communications. While Starlink is illegal in Iran, there may be about 50,000 terminals in the country that were smuggled in on the black market, according to Iranian human rights activist Ahmad Ahmadian. The service has provided a small amount of bandwidth for Iranians to share social media footage with the world.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump continues to closely monitor the situation in Iran and will keep all options on the table. At least one US aircraft carrier and other US assets are moving to the region in the coming days and weeks to provide options should the US decide to carry out strikes, Fox News reported, citing military sources.

The odds of a strike will grow once the carrier group arrives between late January and early February and will remain elevated through the first half of 2026, analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a report.

“Iran cannot address the root causes of the protests,” which could reignite demonstrations and “provide Trump a new pretext for threatening and deploying military action,” they said.

The country shut down internet access on Jan. 8 in an attempt to quell protests sparked by a currency crisis in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the demonstrations and a brutal crackdown ensued. The social media footage that’s come out of Iran has shown demonstrators being shot and killed as authorities sought to clamp down. 

The 2019 internet blackout, following protests sparked by a sudden rise in fuel prices, marked the first time authorities effectively cut the population off from the outside world.

The scarcity of foreign exchange in Iran remains severe, which will likely keep pressure on the currency and ensure inflation — officially at around 50% — remains elevated over the coming weeks and months. It was a crash in the rial that initially sparked the protests. Oil broadly held on to its biggest price decline since June as concerns eased of an attack on OPEC’s fourth-largest producer.

Authorities in Iran have described the unrest as a US‑ and Israeli‑backed plot, accusing their governments of arming and directing terrorists to target security forces and civilians.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is considering tightening sanctions on Iran — already under heavy restrictions from Western governments. The US on Thursday added a number of individuals and entities to an already extensive list of sanctions.

“They are weakening the regime, and the sanctions help to push forward that this regime comes to an end and that there is a change,” Von der Leyen said Thursday in Cyprus.

--With assistance from Thomas Hall, John Bowker, Michelle Jamrisko and Iain Marlow.

(Updates with Trump comments from fifth paragraph.)

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