DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) – Mobile phone Internet service in Iran is being disrupted a week into protests in the country’s southwest over water shortages, a monitoring group said on Thursday, unrest that has seen at least three people killed.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org attributed part of the disruption to “state information controls or targetted Internet shutdowns.” It identified the outages as beginning July 15, when the protests began in Khuzestan amid a drought affecting the oil-rich region neighbouring Iraq.
While landline service continues, NetBlocks warned its analysis and user reports were “consistent with a regional internet shutdown intended to control protests”.
The effects represent “a near-total Internet shutdown that is likely to limit the public’s ability to express political discontent or communicate with each other and the outside world”, NetBlocks said.
There was no acknowledgement of an Internet shutdown in Iranian state media. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Activist groups abroad have described Internet disruptions in the region in recent days as well.
Protests took place across eight cities and towns in Khuzestan into the early hours of Thursday, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Security forces fired tear gas, water cannons and clashed with demonstrators, the group said.
