Iranian security forces using tear gas to disperse protesters at the Tehran bazaar who were chanting slogans against the clerical authorities on January 6, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP
A nationwide internet blackout was reported in Iran on Thursday night (January 8, 2026) with internet access and telephone lines cut out after demonstrators in Tehran and elsewhere joined a protest called by the country’s exiled Crown Prince.
Protests sparked by Iran’s ailing economy have swept the country and turned into a significant challenge for its theocracy. The death toll mounts from a crackdown by authorities after 12 days of economic protests.
CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference.
Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected.
“Live metrics show Iran is now in the midst of a nationwide internet blackout. The incident follows a series of escalating digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country and hinders the public’s right to communicate at a critical moment,” NetBlocks said in a statement on social media.
Trump says U.S. will hit Iran ‘very hard’ if protesters are killed
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday (January 8) threatened to take severe action against Iran if its authorities “start killing people” who are protesting in the country, where an economic crisis has led to mounting civil unrest.
“I have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots — they have lots of riots — if they do it, we are going to hit them very hard,” Mr. Trump said during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fuelling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.
Thursday (January 8) saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
With inputs from AFP, AP
Published – January 09, 2026 12:19 am IST
