Internet and phones cut in Iran as protesters heed exiled prince’s call for mass demonstration

AP News ^ | Updated 8:14 PM CST, January 8, 2026 | JON GAMBRELL

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Iran’s government has cut off the country from the internet and international telephone calls.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-us-israel-war-nuclear-economy-ebddd998fbe7903e70ca62127250ebcb

The demonstrations that have popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran continued Thursday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 42 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference. Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns.

Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless. It remains unclear how Pahlavi’s call will affect the demonstrations moving forward.

“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”

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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: internet; iran; protests; starlink

[avital2]

Starlink is wide open thanks to Elon. i read he made 100000 kits available a bit ago.not sure how (Mossad?)

[Celtic Conservative]

Interesting how most legacy news organizations have been studiously ignoring this.

CC

[BigEdLB]

It’s 7:45 AM in Iran, so it is light. Any word.??? Tousi is still offline