As Iran goes dark, the state tightens its grip

The darkness is deliberate. It is enforced to prevent protesters from communicating and organizing—and to conceal the crimes committed to crush them when they do.

Iran International on Tuesday put the death toll from the crackdown at around 12,000, vowing in a statement that the mass killing “will not be buried in silence.”

With nearly all communication channels severed, Khamenei remains one of the few figures whose website continues to function. State television—a network of more than 30 channels—is still broadcasting the image he wants the world to see.

The same is true of a handful of state-aligned news agencies, including Fars, Tasnim, and Mehr, all controlled by the Revolutionary Guards or the Organization for Islamic Propagation.

Although Iran’s national intranet has partially resumed after several days of shutdown, even state television has struggled to maintain its broadcasts following the severing of international internet links.

Despite those limitations, state TV aired footage promoting a tightly stage-managed pro-government rally in one of Tehran’s smallest squares, a space that can barely hold 3,000 people.

Internet experts say a small number of X users inside Iran have been selectively allowed to post content supporting government narratives. Limited Starlink access also exists, but analysts warn that the sporadic signal means foreign media remain largely blind to developments across most of the country.

As of Tuesday evening in Tehran, the government had not responded to calls from the United Nations secretary-general and European Union officials urging it to restore communication lines.

Meanwhile, social media posts describe security forces raiding homes and confiscating Starlink terminals, satellite dishes, computers, and mobile phones — part of a broader effort to prevent Iranians from accessing independent reporting or sending information abroad.

With the blackout, censorship, and signal jamming, foreign-based Persian-language media—now the primary source of information for many Iranians—may be forced to revive shortwave radio broadcasting. It would represent a step backward in media technology, but perhaps the only way to move forward in reaching a silenced population.

Shukriya Bradost, an Iran analyst based in Washington, wrote on X on Tuesday that while protesters stand “empty-handed against a regime that answers them with bullets,” no significant defections appear to have occurred within the military.

“Starlink and outside reporting no longer have the impact they once did,” she wrote, because the world already knows what is happening in Iran. If any action is to be taken, she concluded, “the time is now, not later.”