Internet and phones cut in Iran as protesters heed exiled prince's call for mass demonstration
apnews.com
Iran’s government has cut off the country from the internet and international telephone calls. The move Thursday night comes after nighttime demonstration called by the exiled crown prince drew a mass of protesters to shout from their windows and storm the streets.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — People in Iran’s capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the street Thursday night after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said, a new escalation in the protests that have spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic. Internet access and telephone lines in Iran cut out immediately after the protests began.

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 fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.

Thursday 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 41 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 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. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns.

Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless. It remains unclear how Pahlavi’s call will affect the demonstrations moving forward.

“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
    103·
    2 days ago

    If you think the Shah will be any better than the ayatollah then you are a fool. It always starts out temporary with these tyrants.

    • perestroika@slrpnk.netEnglish
      62·
      2 days ago

      The positive thing in this mess seems to be: the crown prince has never ruled as a shah. His father ruled, did the crimes (suppressed opposition) and fled the revoltion with his family.

      Outwardly, the crown prince appears to be a liberal democrat by persuasion. He is also not a fool (studied political science and definitely knows the basic stuff of public administration).

      Game theoretically, he is currently in the “strongest challenger to the tyrant” role, and even those who don’t want a kingdom, are likely OK with him for a little while.

      About the general situation in Iran - it is now close to a revolution.

      Since a revolution generally must grow exponentially to overcome established power, the next few days are critical to success or failure.

      If a revolution won’t succeed, a prolonged civil war may come as a result, and that’s no good for anyone.

      • lad@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Reminds me a bit of how a prince inherited Spain from Franco. The prince in question dismantled the system and they created a democratic monarchy.

        He also turned out to be corrupt and shitty, but at least he was not a ruler of the country, so I guess we can expect something good to happen, after all

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
        12·
        2 days ago

        I mean his only qualification for leadership is he’s a prince. If you can’t see that alone is a risk of reinstating monarchy I don’t know what to tell you.

        Surely there is a better option, someone who has actually done leadership work on the ground in Iran, not just spend his whole life whining about his birthright and being a tool for fascists.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          3·
          1 day ago

          If there were an option who has “done leadership in Iran,” that person would be part of the current regime. Any potential grassroots leaders have been exiled.

          This rhetoric that “surely there’s a better [hypothetical] option” is the sort of perfectionism and ideological purism that dooms so many movements. Keep waiting for a hypothetical “better option,” you might as well be waiting for a messiah.

          The practical reality is that the crown prince is a figurehead that the liberation movement can rally around, and indeed they are rallying to his call. That alone makes him the best available option, as the momentum being generated is what’s critical. To say “wait, why don’t we wait for someone better to come along” only helps the ayatollah.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
            12·
            1 day ago

            It’s totally ridiculous to suggest that there are no leaders remaining in a country of almost 100 million. There surely religious figures, protest organizers, local heads of community, literally anyone would be better than a monarch. Or if there is truly no one then I have to believe a better exile exists who is not so clearly a Western puppet and with the same toxic baggage. Or, worst case, let there be no singular leader. The protestors can choose delegates for a council of leadership. Even no experience is better than such a dangerous outsider.

            There no point in overthrowing the government if what replaces it will be no better.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              31·
              1 day ago

              This comment thread is literally on an article about people in Iran rallying to his call for a mass demonstration. Read the room.

              Are you in Iran right now, participating in their protests? Cause if not, you have no right to tell them who they should or shouldn’t follow. That’s your own unexamined colonizer mindset showing.

              “The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

              “There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”

              Keep waiting for your perfect leader, but the Iranian people are moving on without you.

              • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
                11·
                1 day ago

                Dude fuck off. Obviously they can do what they want. I’m just explaining why it’s a bad idea. Neither of what we think matters, it’s for Iranians to decide how they want to handle this. But if I were them, I’d pick literally anyone else.

        • perestroika@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          There is a second person who might qualify, but she lives abroad too, and is considered the leader of a terrorist organization.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Rajavi

          What Maryam Rajavi said in September:

          Speaking to the crowd In the 6 September 2025 rally of Iranians in Brussels, Rajavi stated, “The answer to the Iranian crisis is the overthrow of the entire religious tyranny! The people of Iran are more prepared than ever! Iranian society is in a volatile state, and the only solution is the Third Option, neither appeasement nor war, but regime change by the people and their organized resistance!”[47]

          …so broadly speaking, she’s in agreement with the crown prince, but he has better communications currently, and they fear her considerably more, because unlike the shahs’s son, she has given orders to blow people up.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
            11·
            1 day ago

            If you haven’t been accused of being a terrorist in 2026 you’re doing something wrong.

            What is the evidence she ordered people to be blown up? I didn’t see that skimming the article you linked.

            • perestroika@slrpnk.netEnglish
              1·
              1 day ago

              She’s leading them since 1985. They fought in the Iran-Iraq war. Gathered from Wikipedia.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mojahedin_Organization_of_Iran

              From 1982 to 1988, despite the mounting casualties on both sides, the lingering underground presence of the MEK in Iran remained operational and went on to perform an average of sixty operations per week, resulting in assassinations of important Khomeini deputies.[159] The MEK came to be considered Iran’s “largest and most active Iranian exile organization”,[165][166][113] and its publications were commonly circulated within the Iranian diaspora.[167]

              …

              In 1987, it founded the “National Liberation Army of Iran” (NLA), with the sole objective of “toppling the Islamic Republic through military force from outside the country”.[57][58][59] During the Iran–Iraq War, the MEK then sided with Iraq, taking part in Operation Forty Stars,[60][61][62][57] and Operation Mersad.[63][64]

              …

              On 27 March 1988, the NLA launched its first military offensive against the Islamic Republic’s armed forces.[61] The NLA captured 600 square-kilometres of Islamic Republic territory and 508 soldiers from the Iranian 77th infantry division in Khuzestan Province.[173] The operation was named “Shining Sun”[60][61][62][57] (or “Operation Bright Sun”)[173] in which according to Massoud Rajavi, 2000 soldiers of the Islamic Republic were killed and $100 million worth of equipment was captured and exhibited for journalists.[173]

              …

              Operation Forty Stars was launched on June 18, 1988. With 530 aircraft sorties and heavy use of nerve gas, they attacked to the Iranian forces in the area around Mehran, killing or wounding 3,500 and nearly destroying a Revolutionary Guard division. The forces captured the city and took positions in the heights near Mehran, coming close to wiping the whole Iranian Pasdaran division and taking most of its equipment.[174] While some sources claim that Iraq participated in the operation,[175] the MEK and Baghdad said Iraqi soldiers did not take part.[176][177]

              …the crown prince is a fairly safe guy in comparison to both Maryam or Massoud Rajavi. However, I do not exclude that their organization is currently paving the way for him - in ways which would make Mossad faint. (I do hope they’ve stopped playing with chemical weapons, it’s badly out of fashion.)