{"id":36606,"date":"2026-01-18T15:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T15:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36606"},"modified":"2026-01-18T15:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T15:05:16","slug":"iran-considers-gradually-restoring-internet-after-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36606","title":{"rendered":"Iran considers \u2018gradually\u2019 restoring internet after shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
Iranian authorities have said they are considering \u201cgradually\u201d restoring internet access after imposing a sweeping communications shutdown across the country more than a week ago, local media reported.<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning,\u00a0AFP\u00a0was able to connect to the internet from its Tehran office, though the vast majority of internet providers and mobile internet remain cut.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear why the limited connection was possible.<\/p>\n

Outgoing international calls have been possible since Tuesday, and text messaging was restored Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Jeffrey Sachs says US, Israel exploiting Iran unrest to push regime change<\/p>\n

Late Saturday, the Tasnim news agency reported \u201cthe relevant authorities announced that internet access would also be gradually restored\u201d, but gave no further details.<\/p>\n

Citing an unnamed \u201cinformed source\u201d, the agency said local messaging applications \u201cwill soon be activated\u201d on Iran\u2019s domestic intranet.<\/p>\n

The unprecedented communications blackout was imposed as calls proliferated for anti-government demonstrations initially triggered by the country\u2019s economic malaise.<\/p>\n

For days, text messages and international phone calls \u2013 and at times even local calls \u2013 were cut off.<\/p>\n

Iran has since been relying on its intranet, which has supported local media websites, ride-hailing apps, delivery service and banking platforms.<\/p>\n

State television has since Saturday been promoting local messaging applications including Rubika \u2013 which was largely unavailable earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Even before the blackout, popular applications such as Instagram, Facebook, X, Telegram and YouTube had been blocked in Iran for years, requiring VPN connections to bypass the restrictions.<\/p>\n

The protests, which began on December 28, have been widely seen as the biggest challenge to the Iranian leadership since the months-long demonstrations that followed the 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also Read:\u00a0In Iran, Trump toys with regime-change fantasies<\/p>\n

But the latest demonstrations appear to have subsided in recent days.<\/p>\n

Iranian officials have not given an exact death toll for the protests, but Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported that 3,428 people were verified to have been killed by security forces, while warning the actual toll could be several times higher.<\/p>\n

Other estimates place the toll at more than 5,000 \u2013 and possibly as high as 20,000, IHR said.<\/p>\n

The opposition Iran International channel based outside the country has said at least 12,000 people were killed during the protests, citing senior government and security sources.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s judiciary has completely rejected that figure.<\/p>\n

Iranian officials have said the demonstrations were peaceful before turning into \u201criots\u201d that included vandalism of public property.<\/p>\n

Authorities have blamed foreign influence, namely from Iran\u2019s foes the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said \u201ca few thousand\u201d people had been killed by what he called \u201cagents\u201d of the two countries who instigated the unrest.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iranian authorities have said they are considering \u201cgradually\u201d restoring internet access after imposing a sweeping communications shutdown across the country more than a week ago, local media reported. On Sunday morning,\u00a0AFP\u00a0was able to connect to the internet from its Tehran office, though the vast majority of internet providers and mobile internet remain cut. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}