With security forces brutally quelling a nationwide uprising, the Iranian regime intends to extend the internet shutdown for two more months, news reports suggest.
The Shia-Islamic regime will keep the country cut off from the rest of the world until Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The London-based news website Iran International reported that “access to international online services would not be restored before Nowruz, which falls around March 20.”
Meanwhile, the regime is rounding up protesters to weaken the unrest. According to Reuters, Iranian “state media reported more arrests on Friday in the shadow of repeated U.S. threats to intervene if the killing continues.”
An estimated 15,000 protesters have been killed, and tens of thousands have been rounded up as the regime seeks to quell the largest uprising in years. “Around 20,000 protesters have been arrested in Iran since unrest began in late December, according to NGO Iran Human Rights,” France24 TV channel reported. “The group said it was concerned that those arrested could be subject to the “widespread issuance of death sentences through expedited proceedings.”
Thanks to a highly centralised internet service, the Khamenei regime was able to impose a nationwide blackout using a “kill switch” function. “With nearly all of the country’s internet traffic funnelled through a single government-controlled choke point, authorities were able to shut down digital communications almost instantly using an automated ‘kill switch’,” the French TV channel Euronews explained, citing an expert.
The Iran International reported on Friday:
Iran plans to maintain its nationwide internet blackout until at least the Iranian New Year in late March, IranWire reported on Thursday, citing media activists briefed by the government spokesperson.The outlet said government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told media activists that access to international online services would not be restored before Nowruz, which falls around March 20.“The shutdown, now in its second week, is also expected to remain in place until after the end of the 40-day mourning period for those killed in recent nationwide protests,” IranWire said. (…)Iran International reported earlier this week that Iranian authorities were in the final stages of rolling out what sources described as an “internet kill switch” project, designed to enable prolonged nationwide shutdowns.That project aims to move core digital services, banking platforms and public infrastructure onto a national network, making extended blackouts easier to enforce, according to the report.
Under the cover of an internet blackout, pro-regime militia and foreign fighters are massacring people who dare to protest against the regime. They are using machine guns mounted on trucks to mow down protesters, media reports say.
According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights, regime forces were “using heavy weaponry, including DShK [Russian-made heavy machine gun] and other mounted machine guns, in attacks on protesters and carried out mass killings between 8 and 11 January.”
In keeping with the barbaric Islamist practice of holding dead bodies for ransom — as recently demonstrated by the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, the regime forces are demanding huge sums of money for handing over the remains of murdered protesters to their loved ones. “Families of people killed in the protests in Iran have told the BBC that the authorities are demanding large sums of money to return their bodies for burial,” the British broadcaster reported Thursday. “Multiple sources have told BBC Persian that bodies are being held in mortuaries and hospitals and that security forces will not release them unless their relatives hand over money.
In a bid to avert an impending U.S. strike, the regime may have postponed hundreds of public executions. “You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone. They cancelled the hangings. That had a big impact,” President Trump told reporters on Friday.
Amid repeated threats made by Tehran, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is on high alert. Tehran has threatened Israel, besides U.S. military and commercial sites, if President Donald Trump orders a strike against regime targets involved in the mass killing of the Iranian people. The Israeli armed forces are “closely monitoring developments in the region,” the IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Effie Defrin, assured on Friday, adding that they remain “prepared and ready at all times, across a broad range of capabilities.”
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