Some Iranians regain brief internet access amid near-total blackout

After more than 17 days of a near-total communications blackout in Iran, some residents are gaining sporadic but brief windows of internet connectivity, allowing them to reconnect with family and the outside world. People who managed to connect used the short openings to send messages to loved ones and to transmit videos and accounts abroad, giving journalists and rights groups a widening view of the government’s crackdown.

Limited information from those windows suggests that thousands more Iranians may have been killed than the roughly 5,200 figure previously reported, according to some human rights groups working to verify the numbers. The Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had verified more than 5,000 deaths and was seeking to verify more than 17,000 possible deaths as of Friday.

It remains unclear how some people are managing to connect while monitoring shows the shutdown largely remains in place. Internet experts told The New York Times the brief moments are probably linked to authorities attempting to lift the shutdown while keeping tight censorship filters, with NetBlocks director Alp Toker calling the situation “a twilight zone where users are neither online nor offline.” Amir Rashidi, a cybersecurity expert with the digital-rights group Miaan, said the openings may reflect experiments with “whitelisting,” a state effort to offer different levels of connectivity.

The shutdown, which began on Jan.

Key Topics

World, Iran, Internet Blackout, Netblocks, Miaan, Majid Reza Hariri