Article by Indranil Ghosh: “Iran is systematically crippling Starlink, the satellite internet service said to be almost impossible to jam.
Military-grade GPS jammers deployed since January 8 have cut satellite internet performance by as much as 80% in parts of the country, according toAmir Rashidi, director of digital rights at the Miaan Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on Iranian internet censorship and digital rights.
“The level of violence by the government is unlike anything I have ever witnessed,” Rashidi wrote on LinkedIn. “The Islamic Republic is killing to survive.”
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reports at least 572 people have been killed and more than 10,600 arrested since protests erupted on December 28. Iran Human Rights, based in Norway, said the real toll could be far higher. Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi warned of a potential “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout.”
The nationwide internet shutdown, which started on January 8, has disconnected 85 million Iranians from the outside world. Cloudflare, a major internet infrastructure company, recorded a 98.5% collapse in Iranian internet traffic within 30 minutes of the shutdown starting. NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, confirmed non-satellite connectivity dropped below 2% of normal levels.
Iran has cut internet access 17 times since 2018, according to the Internet Society, a nonprofit that advocates for an open internet. Mohammed Soliman, a technology analyst at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said years of sanctions have left the government with near-total control over internet infrastructure…(More)”.
