Iranians are using shortwave radio, VPNs and satellite tech to communicate during a 14-day government-imposed internet blackout aimed at suppressing dissent.
PARIS: Iran’s latest internet blackout has now lasted more than 14 days, according to connectivity monitor Netblocks.
The nature of the outage shows it is a government-imposed measure, not a result of damage from US and Israeli airstrikes. Netblocks research chief Isik Mater told AFP this was a deliberate shutdown by authorities.
“It is a deliberate shutdown imposed by the authorities to suppress the flow of information and prevent further dissent,” said Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International.
Information is still flowing in and out of the country through various methods. Amsterdam-based nonprofit Radio Zamaneh began shortwave broadcasts during the January protests.
It sends a nightly Farsi news programme from 11:00 pm Tehran time. “It’s really difficult for the regime to jam shortwave because it’s a long-distance broadcast,” executive director Rieneke van Santen told AFP.
Many people are still receiving landline phone calls from inside Iran, which Mahsa Alimardani of Witness called “quite surprising”. People often avoid speaking directly about political topics for fear of being overheard.
“It’s not possible to communicate about sensitive issues through these brief phone calls,” Amnesty’s Bahreini said. The required prepaid international calling cards are expensive and often fail to provide their full value.
Virtual private networks cannot create an internet connection where none exists. Iran’s connectivity is at around one percent of typical levels, which Netblocks’ Mater said is “still a large figure in absolute terms”.
Iranians suspected of using VPNs have received warning text messages. Millions previously used Toronto-based Psiphon, which creates specialist tools more capable than typical VPNs.
Psiphon’s data and insights director Keith McManamen said it “is able to evade detection more successfully”. Its unique daily users in Iran have dropped from up to six million to fewer than 100,000.
A lawyer in her thirties from Tehran told AFP she had “absolutely no access to information”. She said accessing the internet required her to “take a risk to my life” and visit a friend with multiple VPNs.
Created by US-based nonprofit NetFreedom Pioneers, Toosheh uses home satellite TV equipment to broadcast encrypted data. Users record from a satellite TV channel onto a USB stick, then decrypt it using a special app.
The group’s director of projects Emilia James told AFP it had an estimated three million active users in Iran across 2025. Since people tune in to a broadcast signal, the government cannot track them.
Elon Musk-owned Starlink was used during this year’s protests to broadcast information. The terminals cost around $2,000 on Iran’s black market and are very rare in poorer regions.
Amnesty has received reports of “raids on houses… arrests of people who had Starlink devices”. Bahreini said charges for those caught communicating with the outside world range from prison sentences to the death penalty.
