Iran Kills the Internet for its "People's Own Good" as Riots Grip the Middle Eastern Nation
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Iran is offline and has been for three days after the government responded to widespread protests by killing the internet.
Anti-government protests started on Friday when the authorities announced a sudden 50 per cent increase in fuel prices. The protests quickly spread to over 100 cities and towns, reflecting deeper hostility to the authoritarian establishment. That establishment responded by cutting off the internet to 80 million people on Saturday night.
As a result it has been increasingly difficult to follow what is going on inside the country or how many people have been injured or killed. The government has acknowledged three deaths, but there have been at least eight reported and more are expected.
Even with the price increase Iran's 13 cents a liter gas prices remain among the cheapest in the world, but the decision to raise the price was just one more sign of Iran's faltering economy, in part due to continued sanctions on the country.
Iran's response was depressingly predictable - its National Security Council instructed all ISPs to cut off internet access out of "national security interests."
Despite the ban however, citizens have quickly discovered that Iran runs two internets: a public internet and a separate network that the government and universities are tapped into and which is still operational.
[...] In a worrying sign of what may really be going on, however, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in an official statement on Monday that it was planning to take "decisive action" against any further protests, raising the possibility of dozens of deaths as has happened repeatedly in recent years.
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