Featured Images: SpaceX Starlink Antenna / A protester holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a protest. (Photograph Source: Ozan Köse AFP Getty Images)
Women-led anti-government protests in Iran have entered day 34. The protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested for violating the compulsory Islamic hijab dress code. She died at the hands of the Iranian 'morality police.' The Iranian government is violently trying to stop the protests and it has censored websites and shutdown internet access in some areas across the country to prevent civilians from sharing videos of the human rights violations that are taking place.
On September 23rd, the U.S. Treasury Department adjusted sanctions to help Iranians evade online surveillance and censorship by allowing American telecommunication services in Iran. SpaceX founder Elon Musk was the first to offer Internet service from the Starlink satellite constellation and the company rapidly activated Starlink satellites over Iran.
Karim Sadjadpour, a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endow for International Peace and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, shared that an anonymous group of activists delivered dozens of Starlink user terminals to Iran to provide high-speed internet access. "Efforts have been underway for more than a month to get Starlink terminals to Iran. One group of activists--who want to stay anonymous to protect their networks--asked me to share this video [linked below]. They've already sent dozens of terminals to Iran and intend to scale up," wrote Sadjadpour via Twitter. "These efforts are still *very* nascent, but they have evidence the terminals are working and claim they're taking extra precautions to lessen the risks to users. Videos have also begun trickling out of Starlink terminals being used inside the country," said Sadjadpour.
"These efforts are independent of any efforts by the US government to get Starlink terminals to Iran and are in addition to, not in lieu of, other tools (including VPNs) to circumvent Iran's state censorship. The broad goal is to 'let 1000 flowers bloom'," he added. "Many folks-including prominent Iranian-American tech entrepreneurs-have been engaged on this issue. One told me they are keen on scaling to several thousand terminals in the next 6 months. That may be an ambitious goal, but they are highly motivated despite the challenges."
On October 20, the United States government and the
Freedom Online Coalition issued a
joint-statement condemning the Internet shutdowns in Iran. "We, the members of the Freedom Online Coalition, are deeply alarmed by and strongly condemn the measures undertaken by Iran to restrict access to the Internet following the nationwide protests over the tragic killing of Mahsa Amini. In furtherance of what has become a longstanding pattern of censorship, the Iranian government has to a large scale shut down the Internet yet again for most of its 84 million citizens nationwide by cutting off mobile data; disrupting popular social media platforms; throttling Internet service; and blocking individual users, encrypted DNS services, text messages, and access entirely," the statement reads. The U.S. government is also working to deliver Starlink hardware to Iran amid the internet shutdown and White House representatives are in talks with SpaceX, according to a report by
CNN. "We have our foot on the gas to do everything we possibly can to support the aspirations of the Iranian people," a senior administration official told
CNN reporters. "That is our policy, period. At the same time, it is truly an Iranian movement led by young girls and spreading to other aspects of society. And we do not want to in any way eclipse their movement."
Featured Images: SpaceX Starlink Antenna / A protester holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a protest. (Photograph Source: Ozan Köse AFP Getty Images)
