Iran protests latest: Internet blackout continues as Ayatollah threatens harsher crackdown

Iran’s Islamic regime looks to be tottering. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to express their anger at worsening economic conditions, sparked by international sanctions that have seen their currency collapse and the cost of basic goods shoot up.

At least 38 protesters demanding regime change have been killed so far in violent clashes with police, and 2,200 arrested. Faced with what is fast becoming one of the biggest challenges ever to Iran and its clerical leadership, the ayatollahs – in a rare moment of weakness – pulled the plug on the internet, as government buildings in Tehran were set on fire.

Of course, the Islamic Republic has survived protest waves in the past. In 2009, allegations of election fraud sparked massive street protests and a hugely brutal response by Ayatollah Khamenei’s security forces. In 2022, more than 500 people were reportedly killed in protests after the death in police custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for refusing to wear the obligatory headscarf.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expressed support for protesters in Iran, amid a wave of nationwide protests over worsening economic conditions.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Protests that began on 28 December have spread across multiple cities, with demonstrators chanting slogans against the clerical leadership and calling for political change.

Authorities have responded with force in some areas and imposed a nationwide internet and telephone blackout, limiting communication and independent reporting on events inside the country.

Iran’s unremittingly harsh leadership faces one of the most serious challenges to its theocratic rule since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. After weeks of nationwide protests, the ayatollahs’ spell could soon be broken – which is how counter-revolutions begin, and governments fall

Several rights and press freedom organisations have condemned Iran’s ongoing nationwide internet blackout amid protests, saying it violates fundamental rights and hinders independent reporting.

Rebecca White, a researcher at Amnesty’s Security Lab, said: “The Iranian authorities have once again deliberately blocked internet access inside Iran to hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out..This blanket internet shutdown not only hides human rights violations but amounts to a serious human rights violation in itself.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) expressed “deep concern” for Iranian journalists, citing the nationwide blackout, threats against reporters and recent arrests.

“This increasingly intimidating climate cannot be tolerated,” Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk said, calling for the immediate restoration of telecommunications and the release of 24 detained journalists.

Buildings, buses, and shops have been burned to the ground turning Iran’s capital Tehran into a “war zone” as protests break out across the country demanding the fall of the country’s supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khameini.

This unrest follows a tumultuous period for Tehran, which is still recovering from a 12-day conflict in June, initiated by Israel, that saw US forces bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.

Here’s what to know about the protests and the challenges facing Iran’s government.

X appears to have changed Iran’s flag emoji to a pre-revolution version, replacing the current Islamic Republic emblem with the former lion-and-sun symbol.

The change follows a post by X’s head of product Nikita Bier, who said on Thursday he was working on the update after a user request. By Friday evening, the change appeared to be live, with some official Iranian government accounts, including the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, displaying the old flag as a result.

The pre-1979 flag features green, white, and red horizontal stripes with a lion-and-sun emblem, popular among sections of the Iranian diaspora opposed to clerical rule.

After the 1979 revolution, Iran replaced the symbol with a new coat of arms and added the words “Allahu Akbar” inscription to the flag.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1989, making him the most powerful figure in the Islamic Republic. He succeeded Ruhollah Khomeini amid doubts about his religious standing and authority.

Over more than three decades, he has reshaped the Islamic Republic by shifting power away from elected institutions and towards unelected bodies controlled by loyal clerics, effectively placing key decision-making authority in the office of the Supreme Leader.

He oversaw the rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into the dominant force in Iran’s security, politics and economy, granting it broad autonomy in exchange for loyalty.

Khamenei has repeatedly relied on the Guard and other security agencies to suppress challenges to his rule, including major protest movements in 2009, 2017, 2019 and 2022.

Commenting on the situation in Iran, Professor Maziyar Ghiabi, Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Exeter, said:

“The protestors are maintaining their momentum in what is the largest nationwide event of the past decade. Iranian state officials have been uncompromising.

“It is likely the protests will calm down. But given the social and economic conditions, and the buildup of anger, it is hard to think that state force and repression would extinguish them.”