Iran sees Net disruption amid renewed protests

Dubai, October 12

Iran suffered a “major disruption” in Internet service on Wednesday as calls for renewed protests again saw demonstrators on the streets weeks after the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the country’s morality police, an advocacy group said.

The demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini have become one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement protests.

Demonstrators have included oil workers, high school students and women marching without their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Calls for protests beginning at noon on Wednesday saw a massive deployment of riot police and plainclothes officers throughout Tehran, witnesses said.

They also described disruptions affecting their mobile Internet services.

NetBlocks, an advocacy group, said that Iran’s Internet traffic had dropped to some 25 per cent compared to the peak, even during a working day in which students were in class across the country. — AP

‘Scattered riots designed by enemy’

Dubai: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called anti-government protests “scattered riots” designed by the enemy. “These scattered riots are the passive and clumsy design of the enemy against the great and innovative developments and movements of the Iranian nation,” he said. Reuters