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After 59 days of war, the internet is still largely blocked in Iran. Police say they have arrested more than 1,800 people for crimes related to internet use, sharing images of the war or communicating with the outside world. But economic and political pressures are forcing Iran's government to ease restrictions. Durrie Bouscaren managed to speak with Iranians.
DURRIE BOUSCAREN, BYLINE: For the past three months, this product designer has developed a routine. Get on a 30-hour bus from his hometown in Iran. Drive to the Turkish border...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
BOUSCAREN: ...Catch a minibus to the city of Van and find a hotel where he can use the internet. He'll send some emails, update his projects, and then bring those updates back to his company in Iran. That's why he asked NPR not to name him, due to the risk of arrest when he returns home.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) We're in absolute darkness.
BOUSCAREN: Like other Iranians, he says he's lost contracts simply because he had no way to contact the outside world and tell them he'd miss a deadline.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) We've lost so many deals, and we've been labeled as people who didn't keep their word. Our credibility is in danger.
BOUSCAREN: Slowly, the Iranian government has begun loosening restrictions. Approved content creators, journalists and government officials can get online with so-called white SIM cards. Specialized VPNs for tool private networks, which allow users to access the internet despite the internet blackout, are also being sold on the black market for about $10 per gigabyte of data. But even that carries a risk.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) All of these VPNs are in their own hands. So it means they aren't safe. They're super expensive, and buying and using them is still a crime because being connected to the internet is still a crime.
BOUSCAREN: Iran initially cut off the internet in January, shortly after a deadly crackdown on popular protests killed at least 7,000 people in the streets, then again on February 28, about an hour after the U.S. and Israel began a series of airstrikes that would kill former supreme leader Ali Khamenei and other top officials.
ALP TOKER: Because there was a direct fear that the target had been located through signals intelligence.
BOUSCAREN: Alp Toker is director of NetBlocks, an internet freedom monitor. He says Iran's leaders thought that switching off the internet might mitigate the risk of being tracked by the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
TOKER: It is an information control in the sense that it is there to control people's ability to speak out, but it is also there for another reason, which is to mitigate these perceived threats of digital espionage, which are clearly there.
BOUSCAREN: According to NetBlocks, which tracks global internet outages, the first 48 days of what has become the world's longest national internet blackout cost the Iranian economy more than $1.8 billion. Toker says that's pressuring Iran's government to open up the net. Right now, he measures that Iran's connectivity is running at about 2% of normal levels.
TOKER: I get the sense that we're in for the long haul. It's not a good look to be offline permanently. But I think that that fear, both of the people's dissent, as well as the cyberespionage, is going to make it more difficult for them to bring that connectivity back.
BOUSCAREN: Top officials in Iran say they're now reviewing the country's wartime internet policy. State media reported the country's first vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, saying that, quote, "class-based internet and whitelisting are contrary to the government's justice-oriented approach."
In voice notes and text messages, Iranians contacted by NPR described life without the internet as suffocating and isolated. They, too, asked to remain anonymous because of the risk of arrest for speaking to foreign media.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Through interpreter) After all these days I've been feeling like I'm in prison, I could finally buy a configuration to get connected for a few minutes. We cannot breathe here.
BOUSCAREN: A restaurant worker in Rasht said he's unable to follow news about the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Through interpreter) What negotiations? If what we thought mattered, even in the slightest, they would not have cut our connectivity altogether.
BOUSCAREN: "If the people of Iran mattered to the outside world," he says, "someone would represent us at the table." From NPR News, I'm Durrie Bouscaren in Van, Turkey.
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