International affairs and Internet freedom expert
Iran’s near-total internet blackout since January 8 did not only shut down social media but collapsed the country’s last channels to the outside world, isolating families and sharply limiting what evidence of the crackdown could escape.
The shutdown, imposed on January 8 as protests spread nationwide, follows a familiar pattern in the Islamic Republic’s response to unrest. But its scale and duration have once again exposed a critical vulnerability for both Iranians and the outside world: when domestic networks go dark, how does information still get out?
The answer lies in a narrow and increasingly contested ecosystem of satellite-based and offline technologies that operate beyond Iran’s communications infrastructure.
Among the actors working in that space is NetFreedom Pioneers (NFP), a US-based nonprofit that has spent more than a decade developing tools for societies living under digital repression.
“People in Iran are asking for basic freedoms and basic livelihoods, and they are facing live fire,” said Evan Firoozi, NFP’s executive director. “The question is whether the outside world can still see what is happening.”
Founded in Los Angeles in 2012, NFP initially focused on countering Iran’s expanding censorship regime.
Its best-known technology, Toosheh, is a one-way satellite file-casting system that delivers information using widely available household equipment: free-to-air satellite dishes, receivers and USB drives. Because it does not rely on internet connectivity, Toosheh can continue operating even during nationwide shutdowns.
Over the years, the system has been used to distribute global news, digital security guidance and educational material inside Iran. During periods of unrest, NFP says it adjusts the content it sends, prioritizing personal safety information and verified reporting.
After a five-month pause linked to US funding disruptions, Toosheh resumed broadcasts in January as the blackout took hold.
Two-way communication is far harder to sustain. That gap has increasingly been filled by Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by SpaceX.
NFP is supporting Starlink access for Iranians, delivering terminals and covering subscription costs–that is, until Elon Musk lifted subscription fees for users in Iran–thanks to .
During the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests, NFP began helping deliver Starlink terminals into Iran, enabling limited but crucial connectivity for activists, journalists and civil-society networks.
“Without satellite internet, much of what the world sees from Iran simply wouldn’t exist,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, an NFP co-founder and board member. “Most of the photos and videos that do emerge during shutdowns are transmitted through Starlink.”
The number of Starlink terminals inside Iran is impossible to verify. Activists estimate that tens of thousands may be scattered across the country, smuggled in via third countries and used not only by political groups but also by businesses, students and households seeking uncensored access.
Countermeasures
Iranian authorities have acknowledged the threat posed by such systems, and users report intermittent jamming, reportedly using Russian-supplied technology.
This week, monitoring groups including NetBlocks and Access Now reported brief, inconsistent openings in Iran’s shutdown, allowing limited messaging and data access.
The restrictions, however, remain largely in place, leaving satellite systems, one-way tools like Toosheh and trusted circumvention software as the primary lifelines for both Iranians and those trying to document events from abroad.
Groups working in this space have relied in part on public fundraising to finance satellite terminals and subscriptions, drawing support from the Iranian diaspora and technology donors.
For now, Iranians are forced to rely on a fragile patchwork: shared Starlink terminals switched on briefly to avoid detection, one-way satellite systems like Toosheh, and circumvention tools that work only intermittently.
It is enough to let fragments escape, but not enough to guarantee sustained, safe communication for millions living under blackout conditions.
New satellite technologies, including Direct-to-Cell services that allow ordinary mobile phones to connect directly to satellites without ground infrastructure, could fundamentally alter the balance.
Yet for Iranians, these services remain out of reach, constrained by sanctions, licensing barriers and political hesitation, even as the blackout model becomes an increasingly central tool of repression.
Until that changes, the outside world’s view into Iran will continue to depend on a narrow group of actors willing to take extraordinary risks to keep information moving.
Their work does not end repression, but it prevents it from disappearing entirely into darkness—and in moments like this, that distinction matters.
They described symptoms that they said went beyond those caused by conventional tear gas, including severe breathing difficulties, sudden weakness and loss of movement.
“What was fired was not tear gas,” one protester said.
"People collapsed," another eyewitness said.
Iranian authorities crushed unrest earlier this month in the deadliest crackdown on protestors in the Islamic Republic's nearly 50-year history.
According to accounts, the gases caused intense burning of the eyes, skin and lungs, along with acute respiratory distress, repeated coughing, dizziness, loss of balance and, in some cases, vomiting or coughing up blood.
Witnesses said the severity and persistence of the symptoms differed from their past experiences with tear gas, although they said they could not identify the substances used.
Gas fired into crowds and escape routes
Witnesses said gas canisters were fired into crowds and along escape routes, including narrow streets and alleys.
According to the accounts, in some cases gunfire began at the same time, or immediately after, protesters lost the ability to walk or run and fell to the ground.
Several witnesses said that moments of immobilization became points at which shooting intensified, particularly when protesters collapsed in alleys or while trying to flee.
Reports came from multiple cities, including Tehran, Isfahan and Sabzevar.
Sabzevar footage
Videos received from Sabzevar, a city in Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, and reviewed by Iran International showed security personnel wearing special protective clothing and masks designed for hazardous chemical materials, positioned on military-style vehicles in city streets.
Warning symbols associated with hazardous substances were visible on vehicles in the footage. Sounds consistent with gunfire could be heard in separate videos.
Iranian forces are seen wearing chemical-hazard protective gear on military-style vehicles in the streets of Sabzevar, northeast Iran.
A yellow triangular hazardous-materials warning sign is visible in the footage, while gunfire can be heard in a separate video.
Isfahan accounts
In central province of Isfahan, witnesses said tear gas with chemical characteristics was fired directly into crowds of protesters, including teenagers, young people and older individuals.
They said attempts to reduce the effects of the gas using common methods such as wet cloths quickly proved ineffective.
Witnesses described scenes in which people fleeing into alleys developed severe breathing difficulties and collapsed after running short distances. They said shooting began while protesters were in that condition, with scenes they described as “like war movies.”
Other witnesses described the smell of the gases as a mixture of pepper, swimming-pool chlorine, bleach and vinegar, and said the sky filled with smoke in red, yellow and white colors.
Several women and a 17-year-old girl described seeing an unknown device that, they said, “without the sound of gunfire, fired something like flames in red and yellow.”
“Seconds later, the street was full of smoke and vapor,” they said, adding that the smell resembled ammonia, drain cleaner and, in some areas, mustard.
One woman said two plainclothes agents put on protective masks before throwing gas canisters toward nearby crowds. She said young people closest to the impact “quickly developed coughing, intense burning and inability to move” and shouted: “I’m burned.”
Tehran accounts
In Tehran, witnesses from several neighborhoods said gas was fired repeatedly, producing thick smoke and severe irritation.
Protesters said the gases caused intense burning of the eyes and lungs and numbness in the lips, with smoke described as green, yellow and black.
Witnesses said protesters who felt suffocation sought refuge inside nearby homes, but said security agents were positioned near some of those locations.
In addition to tear gas, witnesses spoke of “unknown gases with more severe effects,” saying those exposed experienced sudden weakness, inability to walk and loss of breath.
Fear of hospitals
In a number of accounts, witnesses said fear of the presence of security agents at hospitals and the risk of arrest led many wounded protesters to avoid medical centers.
They said some treatment was instead carried out at private homes with the help of volunteer doctors.
Some witnesses said people they knew continued to suffer severe coughing, nausea and skin blistering days after exposure.
Medical assessment
Alan Fotouhi, a physician and professor of clinical pharmacology based in Sweden, told Iran International that the symptoms described by witnesses did not match those typically associated with standard tear gas.
He said the pattern of symptoms, severity of harm and persistence of effects differed from what is normally observed with conventional tear gas exposure.
Fotouhi said the reported effects could result from a combination of high-dose tear gas and other highly irritating chemical substances, but said identifying the exact materials would require laboratory analysis.
Iranian authorities have not commented on the witness accounts.
Iran is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which restricts the use of chemical agents against civilians.
Human rights groups have condemned the use of force against protesters in Iran, including the use of tear gas and live ammunition.
Security forces, Amnesty said, moved quickly after the killings to impose sweeping controls aimed at silencing survivors, intimidating families of victims and preventing documentation of what it described as unlawful mass killings carried out to crush what it called a popular uprising.
The measures included arbitrary mass arrests, enforced disappearances, bans on gatherings, night-time curfews, and a near-total internet blackout, alongside the deployment of heavily armed patrols across cities and inter-city roads, Amnesty International said.
“While people in Iran are still reeling from the grief and shock of the unprecedented massacres during protest dispersals, the Iranian authorities are waging a coordinated attack on the rights of people in Iran to life, dignity and fundamental freedoms in a criminal bid to terrorize the population into silence,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Through the ongoing internet shutdown, the authorities are deliberately isolating over 90 million people from the rest of the world to conceal their crimes and evade accountability.”
“The international community must not allow another chapter of mass atrocities in Iran to be buried without consequence. Urgent international action, including steps towards accountability through independent international justice mechanisms, is long overdue to break the cycle of bloodshed and impunity.”
Conflicting death tolls
The clampdown followed the killings of protesters during demonstrations on January 8 and 9, which Amnesty described as unprecedented in scale.
On January 21, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council put the total number of people killed during the uprising at 3,117.
Days earlier, Mai Sato, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said estimates suggested at least 5,000 civilians had been killed, adding that figures based on reports from doctors inside Iran could be significantly higher.
The information blackout since January 8, Amnesty said, has made independent verification difficult and led to the loss of crucial evidence after security forces confiscated mobile phones from those killed or detained.
Mass arrests and enforced disappearances
Tens of thousands of people, including children, have been arbitrarily detained, according to Amnesty. Arrests were reported during night-time home raids, at checkpoints, in workplaces, and in hospitals.
The organization said security forces removed wounded protesters from hospitals in several provinces and threatened medical staff with prosecution for treating injured demonstrators without notifying authorities.
Families and lawyers have frequently been denied information about detainees’ whereabouts, amounting to enforced disappearance under international law.
Amnesty documented cases of torture and ill-treatment, including beatings, sexual violence, threats of execution and denial of water, food and medical care.
Intimidation of families
Families of those killed have faced sustained pressure, Amnesty said, including being forced to bury victims by night, demands for money in exchange for bodies, and coercion to issue false statements blaming protesters or labeling victims as members of pro-government forces.
State media has broadcast forced “confessions” and statements from grieving relatives, a practice Amnesty said mirrors past efforts to justify repression and pave the way for harsh sentences, including executions.
Militarized control
Amnesty said security forces have established dense networks of checkpoints, enforced curfews, and warned residents through loudspeakers to remain indoors.
Videos reviewed by the group showed armored vehicles, heavy weapons and water-cannon trucks deployed in multiple cities.
The organization called on Iranian authorities to restore internet access, release arbitrarily detained individuals, disclose the fate of the disappeared, end harassment of victims’ families and allow independent investigations into the killings.
The instruction, according to the information received by Iran International, was conveyed during a meeting with managers of domestic media outlets and explicitly required them to refer only to figures released by state bodies, while avoiding any independent accounting of deaths.
The same directive, the sources said, also prohibited interviews or conversations with families of those killed.
Sources described as familiar with the decision said the measure was aimed at preventing broader disclosure of the scale of the killings of protesters, which they said occurred under direct orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Media managers question the order
The directive was delivered, the report said, as some domestic media managers challenged the government’s line during the same session, pointing to internal information suggesting a death toll in the thousands and questioning instructions issued under President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Supreme National Security Council.
Those participants, according to the account, argued there is a wide gap between official numbers and information circulating inside the country.
Iran’s National Security Council, a body operating under the Interior Minister, on Wednesday published figures for the first time covering deaths on January 8 and 9.
The statement put the number of killed protesters at 690. It also listed a total death toll of 3,117 across the two days, but described 2,427 of those as “martyrs” drawn from “innocent people and guardians of order and security,” a designation in the Islamic Republic’s official language generally used for those aligned with state institutions.
The Islamic Republic’s Martyrs Foundation also announced on Wednesday that military and security forces had taken the lives of only 690 protesters, while another 2,427 people were said to have been killed by protesters. The institution had initially reported 3,317 deaths, but hours later revised the figure down to 3,117.
Iran International said the official numbers differ sharply from information it has received, eyewitness accounts, and reporting by international media.
The outlet’s editorial board has previously put the number of protesters killed by state forces at at least 12,000, according to its published statement.
The number of civilians killed in Iran’s crackdown on protests may be more than 20,000, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran said, citing reports from doctors inside the country, Bloomberg reported.
Mai Sato said earlier this week that civilian deaths were estimated at 5,000 or more, adding that medical reports suggested the toll could be far higher, at about 20,000 or more.
Iran International’s statement described the killings on January 8 and 9 as unprecedented in modern Iranian history in geographic spread, intensity of violence, and number of deaths.
