This frame grab from a video released January 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)
Internet monitor Netblocks: Shutdown ongoing for over 24 hrs

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi says Iran internet shutdown could hide possible ‘massacre’

Peace prize winner says blackout is a tactic; exiled activist says she was told hundreds hospitalized with eye injuries from pellet gun fire; international phone calls also blocked

by · The Times of Israel

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on Friday warned security forces in the Islamic Republic could be preparing to commit a “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout” after imposing a nationwide internet shutdown.

The internet shutdown is “not a technical failure… it is a tactic,” the veteran campaigner, who now lives in exile, said on her official Telegram account.

She said she had received information that hundreds of people had been taken to a Tehran hospital on Thursday with “severe eye injuries” caused by pellet gun fire.

Protests have taken place across Iran for 13 days in a movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living that is now marked by calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-Western shah.

An internet blackout implemented by the Iranian authorities during the protests has now lasted 24 hours, internet freedom monitor Netblocks said.

“It has now been 24 hours since Iran implemented a nationwide internet shutdown, with connectivity flatlining at 1% of ordinary levels,” the organization said on X.

Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi speaks during a ceremony to celebrate International Women’s Day, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on March 15, 2023. (Photo by Frederick FLORIN / AFP)

In a separate statement, Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.

Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology said the decision to shut down the internet was made “by the competent security authorities under the prevailing circumstances of the country.”

International phone calls were also blocked.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 51 protesters, including nine children under the age of 18, have been killed by security forces and hundreds more injured.

The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges yet to the Islamic Republic in its over four-and-a-half decades of existence.