Iranians Risk Death to Access the Internet Amid Record Blackout
Iran's 21-day internet blackout — the longest in history — has pushed 92 million people into a dangerous black market for connectivity, as the government punishes citizens for simply trying to reach family.
Days after Elaheh paid 5.6 million Tomans on the black market for 10 gigabytes of internet access, a text message arrived from Iranian security forces. Authorities had detected her VPN. They were watching.
She had wanted only to check on family members during the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. That desire — to know whether the people she loved were alive — made her a target. Elaheh spoke to Middle East Eye under a pseudonym, for reasons the text message made obvious. She was not alone: roughly 92 million Iranians have faced the same calculus, in what has become the longest internet blackout in the country's history.
The 21-day shutdown now surpasses records set only by military coup governments in Sudan and Myanmar, according to NetBlocks, which monitors internet access worldwide. Connectivity has collapsed from 100 percent to approximately 1 percent of normal levels since the blackout began Feb. 28.
Standard VPN services have stopped working, said NetBlocks Director Alp Toker. Only a small, government-approved group retains any access at all. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed the whitelist system on March 10, stating it applied to those who could "convey the voice of the system to the world."
That admission hardened into something starker when Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CBS he maintains internet access because he is "the voice of Iranians" and must defend their rights — while the people he claims to speak for scroll through darkness.
The two-tiered system has driven a dangerous black market. VPN sellers move through trusted contacts only, one step ahead of surveillance and arrest, as ordinary citizens pay black-market prices for the connectivity that government officials take for granted.
Iranian intelligence announced March 17 that officers had seized hundreds of banned Starlink devices in what officials described as a "complex and extensive operation." Owning or using an illegal Starlink system, they warned, is a crime under Iranian law — punishable by the harshest penalties during wartime.
The crackdown targets an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 active Starlink subscriptions inside Iran. Reports indicate the Trump administration covertly smuggled approximately 6,000 terminals into the country in January 2026, layering geopolitical rivalry onto what is already a domestic war against civilian access.
The human cost extends far beyond a slow connection. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented three journalists killed, five detained, and eight assaulted or threatened since the blackout began. Human rights groups warn that prolonged internet shutdowns routinely serve as cover for organized, systematic abuses carried out beyond the world's sight.
Mohammed Soliman of the Middle East Institute called it a digital siege weaponized against civilians in wartime. The numbers bear him out: Iranians have now spent roughly one-third of 2026 in complete digital darkness.
The economic damage mounts at between $35.7 million and $37 million per day, according to Iran's minister of communications and NetBlocks data.
The blackout stretches through Nowruz, the Persian New Year — a holiday built around the gathering of families. For millions separated from parents, siblings, and children by war and distance, silence has replaced celebration.
The Iranian government has given no indication it will lift the blackout. The international community has called for an end to the restrictions. The war enters its fourth week. And in homes across Iran, people still reach for their phones — not for entertainment, not for news, but for the single most human impulse there is: to hear a voice and know that someone, somewhere, is still there.