Month: July 2025

Jerusalem Post – Two Jewish American nationals were among the 35 Jews who were arrested in Iran’s Tehran and Shiraz last month for allegedly having ties to Israel, KAN revealed in a Monday report.

The 35 Jews who were arrested were part of a government crackdown by the Islamic Republic that began right after the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June, according to a report by HRANA, the Human Rights Activist News Agency.

Five of those arrested are still detained, including one of the two American Jews. The other, an Iranian-American Jew from Los Angeles, was released on bail. He arrived in the country to visit family.

The one American Jew still imprisoned had initially left Iran for New York three decades ago, but returned to also visit relatives.

Releasing the remaining detainees
An additional 11 Jews were released from detention in recent days, according to the report, and efforts are still being made for the remaining five detainees’ release, the report said.
“The two Americans arrived at the wrong place at the wrong time,” KAN quoted a source involved in the efforts to release them as saying.

A report earlier this month quoted a senior Iranian communal leader, who lives in Los Angeles, as saying that Islamic Republic authorities are checking the cell phones of those they arrest, looking for records of any calls to the Jewish state.

“Most Iranian Jews have family in Israel,” he explained.

During Operation Rising Lion, many Iranian Jews reached out to check on the safety of their relatives in Israel.

The post Two American Jews arrested in Iran on suspicion of espionage, one remains imprisoned appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Boston Globe – The crackdown that many Iranians feared has begun.
Having weathered the Israeli onslaught, the Islamic Republic of Iran is shifting its focus to the home front — carrying out mass arrests and executions, erecting new security checkpoints, and warning citizens against online activity deemed sympathetic to Israel.
As an Iranian-American who has lived and worked as a journalist in Iran — and who spent 100 days imprisoned there — I feel both anguish and dread watching history repeat itself. The leaders of the United States, Israel, and the Islamic Republic are jockeying over claims of victory, while human rights abuses and the everyday suffering of ordinary Iranians have started to fade, once again, from the headlines.

During the 12 days of war, more than 700 people were accused of being “Israeli operatives” and were arrested, according to the state-affiliated Fars News Agency. Human rights groups report that hundreds more have been detained. Among them are activists, writers, professors, musicians, and former protesters, according to the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. At least 300 people have been detained for their online activities and for posting content related to Israel’s attacks on Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament has passed a bill that authorizes flogging or imprisonment for the use of internet services such as Starlink and expands punishments — including the death penalty — for those accused of collaborating with Israel or the United States. Authorities have executed at least six people on charges of spying for Israel since the war began.

It’s no surprise that a regime blindsided by a foreign enemy’s highly coordinated attacks would now move swiftly to root out what it sees as security threats.
But the regime is not just fighting foreign adversaries. It is using the war as a pretext to crack down on domestic dissent.
Having experienced firsthand the lack of due process and transparency within the Islamic Republic’s judicial system, I have no doubt that many innocent people will be punished for crimes they did not commit.
In 2009, after six years of living and working in Iran as a journalist, I was arrested and accused of spying for the United States. My interrogators claimed that the CIA had paid me to use a book I was writing about Iran as a cover for espionage.
“It’s not possible you could be conducting so many interviews,” one insisted, “only for a book.”
Like many Iranian political prisoners, I was held in solitary confinement and subjected to grueling interrogations, unable to inform anyone of my whereabouts. The authorities threatened my loved ones, fabricated evidence, and warned that espionage could result in many years in prison, and even the death penalty.
For decades the regime has accused journalists, civil society leaders, women’s rights activists, lawyers, academics, environmentalists, and humanitarian workers of committing crimes against the state — sometimes under a charge of espionage.
During my time in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, I met other inmates facing charges like “propaganda against the state,” “acting against national security,” “spreading corruption on earth,” and espionage for foreign governments. These inmates included student activists and peaceful protesters who had done nothing more than exercise basic human rights. Two of my cellmates, both leaders in the Baha’i community, were sentenced to 20 years in prison.

My own sentence was eight years, but I was lucky. After an international campaign for my release, I was freed after 100 days in prison.
Countless others — especially those without the support of a foreign government or the attention of the international media — have not been so fortunate.
The regime expends enormous resources interrogating citizens, monitoring internet activity and phone calls, pressuring people to inform on one another, and tailing them in the streets, in cars, even on flights abroad.
“If the system worked well, they would have found the real spies and prevented Israel from doing so much damage,” an Iranian friend told me. “But instead, the regime took people like you and claimed you were spies.”
Today, many of those being swept up in the regime’s dragnet appear to be suffering the same fate. Detainees are being fast-tracked through unfair trials in kangaroo courts without legal representation or due process, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.
The Iranian regime is responding with repression because “it knows it won’t collapse due to foreign intervention alone,” says Rebin Rahmani, a board member of the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network. “It’s only when external attacks weaken the regime and widespread domestic protests emerge that it faces a real existential crisis,” he says. “That’s why it has responded with such intense repression of the people.”

This crackdown, in other words, was predictable.
Afsoon Najafi, whose youngest sister, Hadis, was shot and killed by security forces during nationwide protests in 2022, told me, “A large percentage of Iranians will again be killed by the Islamic Republic because the regime’s agents are full of resentment toward Iranians. And the regime’s own agents also know that we know they’re scared.”
Regardless of whether US and Iranian officials resume negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Trump administration has an opportunity to show that human rights matter, too. That means, among other things, supporting Iranians’ access to information — for example, by restoring full funding to Voice of America Persian, a crucial source of uncensored news for millions in Iran.
American citizens can also play a role. By calling their members of Congress and expressing support for measures like the IRAN Act, they can help Iranians circumvent internet restrictions and connect with the outside world. Even posting social media content about Iran’s human rights abuses can amplify the voices the regime tries to silence.
Steps like those from the American people, even if their message isn’t taken up by Congress and the current administration, would still send a clear signal to Iran: Human rights abuses will not be ignored.
When I asked an artist in Tehran what she hoped the world would understand about the Iranian people now that a fragile cease-fire is in place, she said on condition of anonymity, “I don’t know what the people of the world can do, but I want them not to be indifferent to the pain we’re enduring.”
“At the very least,” she added, “let us remain in the news. Let them keep an eye on us.”

If the world fails to keep an eye on the Iranian people, we risk silently sanctioning yet another chapter of repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The post Don’t look away from what’s happening in Iran appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Washington Post – The Israeli strike hit just before noon, a series of blasts that shook Tehran’s Evin Prison, a sprawling complex that holds thousands of prisoners and has been a symbol of the Iranian regime’s repression for more than four decades.

A former prisoner who happened to be near the complex June 23 when the rockets fell said he ran toward the explosions. As an inmate, he dreamed that he might one day see the prison gates come crashing down, but what he found that day was nightmarish, he told The Washington Post.

“Everything was rubble,” said the man, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from authorities. “It was really like complete chaos and apocalypse.”

After the strike, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, said the prison complex was used for “intelligence operations against the State of Israel, including counterespionage” and the strike was “carried out in a precise manner to mitigate harm to civilians imprisoned within the prison to the greatest extent possible.” The operation in Evin was conducted one day before a ceasefire ended the 12-day conflict between the two nations.

A Post review of satellite imagery and videos shared to social media revealed damage in four areas of the complex, with structures nearly 2,000 feet apart in ruins. Among the damaged locations were an administrative building, a visitation area for families, a medical center and a solitary confinement cell block, according to two former inmates who examined the images at The Post’s request.

Iranian officials have said at least 71 people were killed. According to online death notices and internal prison records examined by The Post, along with interviews, the dead included 43 prison staff members and two conscripted soldiers who were stationed there. At least four other civilians who did not work at the prison were killed, two of them children, The Post found.

Multiple high-ranking prison officials were among the dead, death notices show, including Ali Ghanaatkar, the top prosecutor at Evin. Ghanaatkar’s prosecutions of dissidents have drawn criticism from human rights groups.

For more than 40 years, Evin Prison, which sits at the foot of the Alborz Mountains in an upscale residential area, has been one of the most visible symbols of the Islamic republic’s authoritarian rule. It is the Iranian security apparatus’s primary site for incarcerating dissidents, foreign journalists, academics and diplomats. Many of those inmates have been tortured and abused. Thousands of people are imprisoned within its walls, including at one point Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi and Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was held there for almost a year and a half.

Military strikes on prisons can raise humanitarian and legal concerns, in part because of the vulnerability of inmates. The Washington-based organization Human Rights Activists in Iran said two prisoners were killed, which The Post could not independently confirm. Iranian officials have said that an unspecified number of prisoners were killed.

The Post’s analysis of high-resolution imagery taken by Maxar Technologies on Monday identified at least 17 damaged or destroyed buildings across the prison grounds. The scattered locations probably indicate multiple strikes, experts in satellite imagery analysis said. The IDF declined to comment on The Post’s findings or answer questions about its intended targets.

“Based on the locations [of the damage], it appears there must have been at least four separate munitions, as nothing that was hit would seem volatile enough to cause damage to spread elsewhere,” said Sean O’Connor, an imagery analyst at the defense intelligence firm Janes.

William Goodhind, a geospatial analyst at Contested Ground, a research project that uses satellite imagery to track armed conflict, said the images indicate at least six strikes. Based on the damage locations, he said the strike appeared aimed at two outcomes: to target access points, such as the gates on the north and south sides of the complex, and to kill prison staff members who would have been in the central buildings. He noted that it looked as though a “lower yield munition was used [rather] than larger-scale airstrikes, where the intent is to level the building.”

More than 60 acres of vegetation surrounding the prison were scorched in fires in the aftermath of the attack, the satellite images show. Some of the structural damage may been inflicted by the fires.

In the center of the prison, a building that contains administrative offices was destroyed and a medical center was heavily damaged, the images show. Videos posted to social media, including ones shared by the Iranian government, show burned-out cars and tangled metal. An exterior wall on the medical center is blackened and bars on its windows are crumpled. Inside, medical equipment and beds are covered in shattered glass.

A doctor who worked at the medical center was also killed, as well as a prison social worker and her 5-year-old son, according to death notices reviewed by The Post.

The attack appears to have also damaged another building across a courtyard from the medical center, which two former prisoners said was the solitary confinement block of Ward 209. The ward is run by the Ministry of Intelligence and often houses political and high-value detainees who are typically blindfolded while they are moved through the facility.

One inmate who spoke to a friend by phone said he saw blindfolded prisoners walking around immediately after the strike with no guards in sight, the friend told The Post.

Satellite images and videos show extensive damage to the visitor gate at the northern edge of the complex, where, according to the former prisoners and a family member of a detainee, Iranians come to visit detained relatives. The attack happened during established visiting hours, they said.

A man who said he arrived at the gate shortly after the explosions described seeing burned cars and prisoners attempting to escape while guards shot at their feet.

“I saw many dead bodies lying on the ground,” he said. “No one had come yet to cover them or to confirm if they were dead.”

The man said he carried the bodies of five people who appeared to be dead and pulled others out of the rubble. The image that stays with him, he said, was one of a father and a daughter who had brought a document for the release of a family member.

“For about two hours, her father was trying CPR,” he said. “Nothing happened, and she died.”

The strike near the visitor gate shattered the windows of apartment buildings nearby and killed 61-year-old Mehrangiz Imanpour as she walked in the area, a family member said.

The apartment building’s CCTV showed that Imanpour left her home around 11 a.m., less than one hour before the strike on the prison. She had gone to pay someone who had done work in her home, her family said. Two days later, authorities told the family her body had been found in a street near the visitor gate.

Video from near Imanpour’s apartment shortly after the strike shows the street covered in earth and dust, and damaged vehicles lining the road. In the distance, the visitor gate is destroyed. A building facade is shattered.

Imanpour’s family member said she was kind and self-made, a gifted artist and painter. “If you were to describe her, there aren’t enough positive things to say about Mehrangiz,” the person said.

Large swaths of Evin are not functional, and family members of two prisoners told The Post that some inmates have been moved to facilities where crowding is rampant and conditions are grim.

“They locked everyone up in a large hall that can hold a maximum of 30 or 40 people, but now they are keeping more than 120 people there,” said a family member of a male prisoner who was relocated to the Greater Tehran Penitentiary.

Women prisoners remained in Evin the night of the strike before being moved to Qarchak Prison, according to a former Evin prisoner who has spoken with women detainees and a report by Human Rights Activists in Iran.

“[Women prisoners] cleaned the place themselves. There were guards everywhere, pointing guns at their heads, and no water, no gas, no telephone access,” the person said. “Families were very worried.”

Qarchak has been denounced by human rights organizations for its pest infestation, contaminated water and lack of basic social services.

“In this situation, [prisoners] are the most vulnerable,” the former prisoner who ran toward the entrance said. “Who knows what is going to happen next.”

Mikhail Klimentov contributed to this report.

The post Israeli strike hit four areas in notorious Tehran prison. Civilians among the dead. appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

The Economic Times – Satellite radar data from Oregon State University, analyzed by The Daily Telegraph, indicates that during the recent 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel, six Iranian missiles penetrated Israeli airspace and struck five military facilities, including a major air base, intelligence centers, and a logistics hub.

These impacts are in addition to at least 36 other Iranian missiles that penetrated Israel’s air defense systems, which caused damage to residential and industrial buildings.

While most Iranian missiles were intercepted, the success rate of Iran’s strikes improved as the war progressed, possibly due to improved launch tactics or the deployment of more advanced missile systems.

This analysis also reveals that Iran’s success in penetrating Israeli defenses with its missiles peaked at 16 per cent by the seventh day of the war, before declining thereafter.

Satellite data indicates that Iran adapted its attack strategy to overwhelm Israeli defenses by using fast missiles alongside slower drones to divert attention.

Despite this, about 84–87 percent of Iranian missiles were intercepted, according to various sources.

Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), a US-based organization, reported that more than 900 people have been killed and over 3,000 wounded as a result of Israeli strikes on Iran.

The Iranian health ministry has stated that the number of wounded exceeds 4,000.

The post Israel hid massive damage from Iran’s missile strike; satellite images reveal 5 military bases hit appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

MSN – More than 650 people have been killed in Iran following a massive Israeli bombing campaign launched a week ago, an activist group said on Friday.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that 657 people had died and 2,037 injured in the nationwide airstrikes.

The Iranian government does not publish daily figures on casualties.

The HRANA relies on a broad network of informants and publicly available sources.

The group said the dead included at least 263 civilians and 164 members of the military.

Another 230 fatalities remain unidentified.

The network also reported damage to civilian infrastructure, including a projectile striking a children’s hospital in Tehran, which did not result in injuries.

In the western province of Ilam, a fire station was damaged, HRANA said, while an Israeli attack on a car factory in western Iran triggered a large fire.

Israel maintains that its objective is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which it considers an existential threat.

The post Over 650 die in Iran after first week of Israeli strikes appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

The Indian Awaaz – A fragile ceasefire has brought a much-needed reprieve to millions of civilians caught in the deadly crossfire of the Iran-Israel conflict, which has reportedly claimed close to 900 lives. U.S. President Donald Trump, who characterized the intense hostilities as a “12-day war,” announced that both nations had simultaneously sought his administration’s intervention for peace.

The truce was declared after Iranian state media reported that a ceasefire had been “imposed on the enemy,” following what Tehran described as a military response to “U.S. aggression.” This announcement came just hours after Iran launched missile strikes on the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a retaliatory move that significantly escalated the conflict by directly involving American forces.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported a staggering toll of at least 865 fatalities in Iran as of June 22nd. This includes 215 military personnel, 363 civilians, and 287 unidentified individuals. More than 3,300 people have also been injured. These figures are considerably higher than those released by Iranian health authorities, which reported 224 deaths and over 2,500 injuries. Both sources, however, underscored that the majority of casualties were civilians.

The humanitarian crisis in Iran has deepened dramatically. Initially targeting military infrastructure, Israeli airstrikes increasingly struck residential areas and even prisons. This escalation has led to massive internal displacement, forcing millions to abandon their homes. Among the deceased were aid workers, children with disabilities, and nuclear scientists, highlighting the widespread and indiscriminate impact of the violence. Iran’s judiciary specifically noted that parts of Tehran’s Evin Prison, known for holding political detainees, were also targeted by Israeli forces.

In Israel, the human cost has also been severe. Iranian missile strikes have resulted in the deaths of at least 24 civilians and nearly 600 injuries. The southern city of Beersheba bore the brunt of attacks in the final hours before the ceasefire, with emergency services confirming at least three deaths and multiple injuries. Rescue teams are currently sifting through rubble in damaged buildings, searching for survivors.

President Trump confirmed that his diplomatic and security teams worked tirelessly overnight to broker the truce, which reportedly took effect around 4 a.m. local time. Israeli strikes on Iranian cities ceased shortly before the ceasefire, despite a significant intensification of hostilities in the lead-up to the agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to issue a public statement regarding the ceasefire. However, reports indicate that he convened an emergency meeting of the Security Cabinet, instructing ministers to refrain from public comments on the agreement’s terms.

The rapid escalation over the past 12 days has overwhelmed emergency services in both nations. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the influx of wounded, while rescue teams continue their efforts to clear debris and provide assistance to those affected. The UNHCR and other international humanitarian agencies have urgently called for immediate de-escalation, robust protection for civilians, and unhindered access for critical relief operations.

Despite the declared truce, an air of uncertainty persists. Iran has stated its willingness to halt its responses if Israeli attacks cease, but Israeli officials have largely remained silent on the agreement’s specifics. The conflict has starkly illustrated how quickly regional tensions can spiral into full-scale warfare, with ordinary citizens disproportionately bearing the devastating consequences.

The post Ceasefire Brings hope to War-Weary Civilians as Iran-Israel Conflict Claims Over 900 Lives appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

All Israel News – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian congratulated the Iranian people for their “historic punishment” of the “enemy aggressor” during a speech to celebrate Iran’s victory over Israel in a victory parade in Tehran, according to the regime-affiliated Fars News Agency.

“After the courageous resistance of your great and history-making nation, we are witnessing a ceasefire and cessation of the 12-day war that was imposed on the Iranian nation by the adventurism and incitement of the Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian stated.

“During this period, the world watched the authority of the great Iran, which enjoyed the support of its people, and although the beginning of this imposed war was a terrorist enemy, its end was marked by the will and authority of the great people of Iran. Today, in a situation where the enemy aggressor agreed to stop fomenting war, he suffered a severe and historic punishment,” Pezeshkian continued.

Iranian Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani was also seen for the first time since the start of the campaign against Iran, when he participated in the victory celebrations in Tehran.

Later on Wednesday morning, during an Iranian cabinet meeting, Pezeshkian said, “The Zionist regime’s actions made us realize more than ever that it is all the people of Iran – not just one party, one minority, or one group – who are capable of defending the country.”

Despite Pezeshkian’s statements, reports coming out of Iran prior to the regime’s decision to cut off internet access in the country, indicated that the government has begun to use the Basij Force, a kind of paramilitary force, infamous for cracking down on dissent and for violent oppression of Iranian protesters.

Iranian accounts on social media posted messages detailing police and Basij checkpoints set up throughout Tehran, in an attempt to find people protesting the regime, taking pictures of Israeli strikes, or engaged in other anti-regime behaviors.

In his speech to the cabinet, President Pezeshkian personally thanked the Basij Force.

The Public Relations Department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the details of the funeral ceremony of the IRGC commanders killed by “the brutal Israeli aggression” during Operation Rising Lion.

According to the Fars News Agency, the public funeral ceremonies for “the senior martyred commanders, along with other martyred commanders of the Zionist regime’s brutal aggression” will be held on Saturday, June 28, in Tehran, while the funeral for IRGC commander Hossein Salami, and Brig,-Gen. Haj Masoud Shanei, his office director, will be held June 26 in their hometown of Golpayegan.

Meanwhile, the Far News Agency claimed that three Mossad spies were executed by hanging earlier this morning, in the Urmia Prison in the western part of the country.

“Three spies affiliated with the terrorist intelligence agency of the Zionist regime, Mossad, were executed by hanging in Urmia,” the site reported.

Fars News said the three men, Idris Ali, Azad Shojaei, and Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul, were accused of smuggling assassination equipment into Iran. The three were charged with “‘waging war against God’ (moharebeh) and ‘spreading corruption on earth’ (efsad fel-arz) through collaboration with hostile foreign governments.”

However, despite the accusation of contributing to the assassination of government figures, the three were not connected to any of the recent assassinations during Operation Rising Lion.

Iran International, a news site affiliated with opposition movements, said the three Kurdish [men] were implicated in the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian nuclear physicist and scientist who headed Iran’s nuclear program until his surprise killing in November 2020.

Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remotely-operated machine gun, rigged with facial recognition software, and satellite uplinks. While the operation is largely believed to have been carried out by the Mossad, it required willing participants to bring in the components, assemble them, and make sure the system was operating properly.

The three men, who ran a liquor smuggling operation, are accused of smuggling the components into Iran.

However, Iran International cited sources familiar with the families in Iran, who claimed the men were forced into giving a confession through torture.

The Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) reported that so far, 823 Iranian citizens have been arrested on security charges since the start of the war. HRANA said that 286 individuals were arrested for activities on social media or for publishing posts about the Israeli attacks, while 537 were arrested for “security reasons.”

Iranian police announced that checkpoints will continue throughout Iran despite the end of the conflict, according to Iran International.

The news outlet cited the spokesperson of the Internal Affairs Commission, who said in a speech that the police deputies have called for the strengthening of checkpoints.

The post Iran celebrates end of war as ‘victory’ over ‘enemy aggressor’ while hunting for internal dissidents appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

NEWS AZ – The death toll in Iran from Israeli military strikes has risen to 1,054, with 4,476 others injured, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) announced.

Of those killed, 417 were civilians, and around 2,000 of the wounded were non-combatants, according to HRANA, News.Az reports, citing Iranian media.

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel took effect earlier in the day and remains in place.

Since the start of the conflict, at least 823 people have been arrested in Iran, the human rights group added.

The post Iran death toll hits 1,054 amid Israeli strikes as ceasefire comes into effect appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Worldcrunch – When rockets began raining down on Tehran the night of June 13, and open military conflict between Israel and Iran erupted, it wasn’t just the skies that went dark. Almost immediately, internet speeds in Iran dropped sharply. Access to already-blocked platforms and websites became even more restricted. Then, on June 18, the government cut off nearly all connections to the outside world. For 72 hours, 91 million people were plunged into a digital void: no WhatsApp, no Google, no email, no VPN, no way to reach beyond the country’s borders.

It was the most severe internet blackout in the history of the Islamic Republic, and full access still hasn’t been restored. At present, network connectivity remains at just 20% of normal levels. NetBlocks, the organization that tracks global internet disruptions, reported almost no data traffic flowing between Iran and other countries between June 18 and June 21. Not even during past crackdowns, like the November 2019 protests or the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, was the digital shutdown so complete. Back then, at least some inbound data traffic still trickled through.

Officially, Iran’s Ministry of Communications claimed the blackout was a defensive move, designed to shield the population from Israeli cyberattacks. And there had indeed been attacks in the days leading up to it, targeting banks, government servers, and military infrastructure.

The cyber war between Iran and Israel, however, didn’t start last week. It goes back much further.

A “National Internet” megaproject
One early turning point came in 2010, when the Stuxnet virus sabotaged Iranian centrifuges in the Natanz nuclear facility, setting back the country’s atomic program by years. In response, Tehran’s leadership began working to safeguard its digital infrastructure from outside attacks.

That’s when the so-called “National Internet” megaproject was born. At its core, the plan is to build a nationwide intranet, cut off from the rest of the world. The idea is that the government can flip the switch whenever it sees fit. Some observers now fear that what was meant to be an emergency measure could become the new normal. The system was first deployed during the 2019 protests, not just to block demonstrators from organizing but also to stop videos and photos from spreading. The blackout ended up lasting longer than the unrest itself, likely to stress-test the system and find weak spots.

“Since 2019, all international traffic has been routed through a single hub,” says Azadeh Akbari, Assistant Professor of Digital Transformation at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. “The state has completely centralized the infrastructure. It makes surveillance easier and serves as a show of authoritarian power.”

The National Internet was largely developed under former Communications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, a one-time intelligence officer. The idea was to create a self-contained infrastructure, complete with domestic search engines, messaging apps, email services, and online banking, modeled on China’s system.

This network has now been reactivated. For the most part, it’s still running. Iran has homegrown alternatives to nearly every major online service, from a ride-hailing app to its own version of Amazon. But one thing is notably absent: social media and messaging platforms. Iranian alternatives do exist, but hardly anyone trusts them.

As a common joke goes: “Iranian messengers have three checkmarks: one for the sender, one for the recipient, and one for the guy reading over your shoulder.” Many Iranians would rather stay out of touch for days than risk using those apps. Even when the government announced on June 19 that foreign numbers could now be registered, supposedly to let people abroad contact loved ones inside Iran, few people took the offer seriously.

A 72-hour blackout
While the government pitches the shutdown as a protective measure, many people experience it as a terrifying loss of control. In brief conversations with those who’ve managed to get online, one word keeps coming up: “powerlessness.” For Iranians abroad, the 72-hour blackout meant total silence from family members, just as bombs were falling.

For the first time, even telephone lines were restricted. Calls from foreign numbers to Iranian phones were blocked, cutting off what was often the last reliable line of communication. While the Israeli bombs and missiles were striking, that silence caused widespread panic.

From a strategic standpoint, shutting off the internet may have made sense. Reports suggest that high-ranking officers were located and killed using the GPS data from their phones. Akbari, who specializes in digital surveillance, suspects the regime may have used the total blackout to move Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to a safe location. Israel’s Defense Minister had openly threatened to target him.

But this digital blackout didn’t just sever family ties. It stripped civil society of its most vital tools in an instant. Despite years of war rhetoric, the government had no warning system in place for missile attacks, something that was standard even during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. In the early days of the conflict, it was civil society that stepped in, using Telegram channels and Twitter accounts to share air raid alerts. That too disappeared when the shutdown took full effect.

Iran ranks near the bottom (176 out of 180) in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. Trust in state media is virtually nonexistent, and the national broadcaster is seen as a mouthpiece for propaganda. The war was barely covered, with most airtime dedicated to boasting about supposed victories over Israel. In that vacuum, independent news outlets and social media often serve as the only real sources of information. Without access to them, the public is left completely in the dark.

Some government offices, however, managed to stay online. This was discovered by internet activist Mark Pashmforoush and his team, who have been working on digital freedom tools since the 2019 shutdown. He developed a VPN service called Oblivion. According to his findings, some government agencies began selling VPNs at inflated prices during the blackout. But these connections were under state control. Anyone who used them became traceable, and therefore, vulnerable. A double win for the surveillance state.

False hope in Starlink
Many have pinned their hopes on Elon Musk’s satellite internet system, Starlink. But this, too, has proven misleading. “Starlink is not legally authorized in Iran,” says Pashmforoush. “Right now, about 30,000 receivers are active in the country, but the price has shot up to around $3,000 per device.” Before the war, they went for about $850. On top of that comes a monthly fee of roughly $100, a steep price for most Iranians.

The risks are just as high. Starlink hardware must be smuggled in, dodging countless checkpoints along the way. Using it can lead to espionage charges in kangaroo courts. In the worst cases, it could result in the death penalty. Even forgetting to turn on a VPN when logging into a government website could make a user identifiable. The fear of being tracked is real.

And yet, the need to connect to the outside world is stronger. Pashmforoush, who monitors Telegram groups dedicated to Starlink sales, has seen demand steadily rising.

The so-called war-related shutdown, along with the entire National Internet project, is being marketed by the state as a show of “digital sovereignty.” In reality, it targets the very digital spaces that hold society together, says Azadeh Akbari. Having once been a women’s rights activist in Iran, she is intimately familiar with the government’s methods. What she sees now is a shift from digital authoritarianism to full-blown digital totalitarianism.

“The digital sphere is just an extension of social life,” Akbari says. “Cutting it off destroys support networks, neighborhood bonds, grassroots organizing: everything that keeps a society functioning during a crisis.”

The post How Iran Used War With Israel To Stress Test Its Chinese-Style Internet Controls appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.