Report by Reha Kansara and Gouncheh Habibiazard – BBC News and BBC Persia
Reports have announced that Starlink has waived monthly payments for its network users in Iran after the Iranian government imposed a total internet blackout last week, cutting off millions of people from their families, livelihoods, and access to information during a deadly crackdown on protesters.
This satellite internet technology has become a vital lifeline for a group of people inside the country attempting to inform the outside world of what has been happening on the ground in recent days.
Two people in Iran confirmed to BBC Persia that their service cycles were still active on Tuesday evening despite not completing their subscription payments. Additionally, the director of an organization that helps Iranians access the internet reported that Starlink has been converted into a free service.
This satellite technology, belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, provides internet access to tens of thousands of people in Iran, even though it is legally banned in the country. Since the internet shutdown, it has become one of the last, if not the very last, remaining channels through which residents of Iran can communicate with the outside world.
The BBC has contacted SpaceX to verify that this waiver has taken place, but the company has not yet agreed to respond.
Using the service in Iran carries penalties of up to two years in prison, and it was reported that authorities are attempting to track Starlink dishes to prevent people from connecting to the internet.
“They visit rooftops and monitor surrounding buildings,” says Barsing—not his real name—who spoke to BBC Persia using a Starlink connection. “What people need to know is that the government is searching areas where many videos have emerged, so they must be more cautious than ever,” he adds.
The device functions like a space-based cell tower, using a constellation of satellites to communicate with small dishes on the ground integrated with a Wi-Fi plug. However, the equipment is very expensive and beyond the means of many people in Iran, so making it a free service has allowed for wider use.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said following a televised interview with Al Jazeera on Monday: “We have shut down the internet after facing terrorist operations, and I understand that the orders are coming from outside the country.”
The Iranian Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported the imposition of internet restrictions to prevent foreign social media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram from being used for “violent organization and disorder.”
Human rights organizations have condemned the total internet blackout as an abuse of power, and the UN Human Rights Office told the BBC that the shutdown “affects the work of those documenting human rights violations.”
According to secrets revealed so far, a human rights group confirmed that more than 2,400 protesters have been killed in the unrest, in addition to about 150 people linked to security forces, although these figures are believed to be much higher. It has become difficult to estimate the true scale of the harvest, as the BBC and other international news organizations are not permitted to operate from within the country to cover the events.
The internet shutdown has also affected the collection and documentation of evidence regarding what is happening in the field. “I think many people are organized, but there are very few who risk messaging information abroad,” says Barsing.
According to the human rights organization Witness, the number of users accessing the internet via Starlink has reached 50,000. Mahsa Alimardani, who serves as a deputy director at the group for technology, threats, and opportunities, says that Iranian authorities have tried to “deliberately obstruct” Starlink to stop people from accessing the internet but have not achieved any success. She adds: “Therefore, they are turning to seizing equipment through physical means.”
But those taking the risk are going even further. One man told BBC Persia that he traveled nearly 1,000 km (620 miles) to a border area to use neighboring countries’ mobile networks to send a video he filmed. The scene he witnessed—including many bodies piled on the floor of a forensic center in Tehran—was so disturbing that he felt driven to share it, as he informed the BBC.
The Iranian government has a long record of surveillance of its people, including digitally, to tighten its grip on society. They use electronic jamming techniques to disable phones and access people’s data, and Iranians’ access to the internet is usually limited to an internal service resembling a virtual private network. Access to Western social media platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram is blocked, meaning Iranians must use VPNs to access them. Despite this, Instagram is believed to be one of the most popular platforms in Iran, with an estimated 50 million users.
Although some news is indicated online, experts say the Iranian government aims to control the narrative of the story by determining what is shown to the outside. Ann Diamond, a research associate at the Oxford Laboratory for Anonymous Information and Extremist Power, says the government uses information as a weapon by carefully refining it.
“Such materials are designed to inform less than they are to prepare; almost to validate statistics, especially as the Iranian government calls them rioters, strips away collective resistance, and prepares the public—inside and outside Iran—for the rising levels of violence that may be coming if the protests continue,” Diamond says.
Despite the risks, Starlink has become a necessity for many Iranians informing the world about what is happening inside the country. Barsing says: “I prefer not to think about that [imprisonment]. it could be very terrifying.”
On Tuesday, Iranian intelligence forces stated they had thwarted a large ambush of Starlink devices allegedly intended for “espionage and incitement operations within the country.”
However, BBC Persia has confirmed through multiple sources inside Iran that these devices are used by many people to communicate without censorship. Barsing warns that the threat of arrest for using the device is not the only danger. He says that Iranians who want to send video clips that are shared or intercepted online must “understand that if they record these clips from their homes or from where the device is located, their risk will increase, and the government will be able to identify the location.”
Additional contributions from Hadi Nili, BBC Technology Correspondent.
United News Network – UNN Arabic
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