Iran tightens internet curbs on eve of festival tied to protests

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Iran’s internet, which has been heavily throttled by the regime since the outbreak of war, has gone even darker over the past 48 hours, according to network monitoring firms and local activists. 

The Iranian regime has been further restricting what little connectivity remained in the local telecommunications network in an apparent effort to curb the use of virtual private networks, according to analysis from Netblocks and Kentik, two firms that monitor internet traffic.

Previously approved messaging apps such as Rubika have also been disconnected, and many so-called “white” SIM cards, which gave regime loyalists selective access to the internet, were cut off, said Mr Ahmad Ahmadian, the executive director of digital rights group Holistic Resilience. There are as many as 50,000 of these cards in circulation. 

Activists believe the digital shutdown may be an effort to forestall anti-regime protests as the annual Festival Of Fire, Chaharshanbe Suri, starts at sunset on March 17. The 2025 festival erupted into protests across major cities in Iran and elicited a heavy response from state security forces.

“People celebrate with fireworks and bonfires and normally every year the city is literally on fire. It’s a very traditional, celebratory event in Iran, and this time with the war and with people coming to the street, there might be some clashes,” said Mr Ahmadian.

Mr Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last Shah, also called on Iranians in a recent address to transform the fire festival into a “symbol of national solidarity” against the Islamic Republic.

According to an analysis sent to Bloomberg by technology and research firm ASL19, activity on the messaging app Telegram fell significantly around 3.30pm local time on March 15.

Mr Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at network monitoring firm Kentik, said he’d seen a steep drop in recent days in the trickle of traffic that was still getting through to the outside world. 

Mr Amir Rashidi from the digital rights nonprofit Miaan Group also confirmed to Bloomberg that domestic messaging apps are being blocked and local websites are struggling to load.

“All this aligns with with the pattern of internet shutdown of bloody January, when people were massacred,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn. 

These measures are being implemented as Israeli strikes have also begun to target figures associated with Iran’s domestic security apparatus.

The Israeli military said it killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of the Basij paramilitary force, in what it described as a precise strike in Tehran on March 16. On March 17, Israel said it killed Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani in an overnight strike.  

Still, despite the pressure on Iran’s leadership, there have been no significant protests in Iran since the brutal crackdown in January in which government forces killed thousands of people.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have said that Israel and the United States are laying the groundwork for Iranians to topple the ruling system, though they have stressed that any such moves would have to come from the people themselves. BLOOMBERG