Iranian authorities cut internet and phone services late Thursday as residents responded to a call by the exiled crown prince for mass protests, shouting from their homes and rallying in the streets, witnesses said.
In the western province of Kermanshah, which has been shaken by unrest, internet monitoring organization NetBlocks reported a total outage at the main internet operator TCI.
Residents reported that the internet was also restricted in other parts of the country. Mobile internet was also affected in some major cities.
The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran's civilian government and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference. Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns.
The restrictions were widely seen as linked to renewed calls for protests on Thursday and Friday issued by Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A wave of protests has roiled Iran for 11 days, triggered by a deepening economic crisis and a sharp plunge in the national currency, the Iranian rial. In Tehran, angry merchants initially took to the streets, with demonstrations since spreading to large parts of the country.
At least 45 people have been killed in clashes with the authorities since the protests broke out, according to the Oslo-based human rights organization Iran Human Rights.
"The evidence shows that the scope of crackdown is becoming more violent and more extensive every day," the group's director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in a statement.
Iranian officials appeared to be taking the planned protests seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online claiming security forces would use drones to identify those taking part.
Iranian officials have offered no acknowledgment of the scale of the overall protests, which raged across many locations Thursday even before the 8 p.m. demonstration. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed.
