Internet outages hit Iran as protests continue

• Protests over economic hardship continue in Iran.
• Demonstrators gathered in Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan.
• State media reported that the situation was calm in most parts of Iran.

DUBAI: People across Iran were cut off from the outside world on Thursday after a nationwide internet blackout, internet monitoring group NetBlocks said.

The shutdown came as fresh protests over rising prices and economic hardship continued in several cities, with protesters once again taking to the streets to voice their anger.

No further information about the internet outage was immediately available.

This was said by witnesses in the capital Tehran and the major cities of Mashhad and Isfahan Reuters that protesters gathered in the streets again on Thursday, chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic’s clerical rulers.

Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah of Iran who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, called in a video post on X on Wednesday for more protests.

Social media posts, which could not be independently verified by Reuterssaid protesters chanted pro-Pahlavi slogans in several cities and towns across Iran.

However, Iranian state media reported that cities across the country were calm.

The current protests, the biggest wave of dissent in three years, began last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar with shopkeepers denouncing the free fall of the rial currency.

Since then, unrest has spread across the country, amid deepening anxiety over economic deprivation resulting from soaring inflation fueled by mismanagement and Western sanctions, as well as curbs on political and social freedoms.

President Massoud Pezeskian warned domestic suppliers against hoarding or overpricing goods, state media reported earlier Thursday.

“People should not feel shortchanged in terms of supply and distribution of goods,” he said, calling on his government to ensure adequate supply of goods and monitor prices across the country.

Tehran remains under international pressure with US President Donald Trump threatening to help protesters if security forces open fire on them, seven months after Israeli and US forces bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.