PARIS: A senior Iranian official said on Monday that he hoped internet access for businesses would be restored within the next two days, after <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-ready-to-respond-decisively-to-any-hostile-move-warns-irgc-commander" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">authorities</a>&nbsp;imposed a blackout during a wave of anti-government protests. Rights groups say the internet blackout has provided cover for a deadly crackdown that has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/us-president-warns-iran-of-blowing-in-response-to-the-assassination-threats" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">resulted</a> in the death of several protesters and military officials. &quot;We hope that companies&#39; access to the international internet will be restored within the next day or two,&quot; Hossein Rafieian, a senior official on digital economy matters, told Iran&#39;s Mehr news agency. He noted that the final decision was outside his office&#39;s &quot;direct authority,&quot; but said &quot;the issue is being followed up continuously through consultations with the relevant bodies.&quot; Internet monitor Netblocks said Iran had been cut off from the global internet for 18 days. &quot;Gaps in the filternet are being tightened to limit circumvention while whitelisted regime accounts promote the Islamic Republic&#39;s narrative,&quot; it added. Protests over economic grievances began in late December, but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic Republic, with huge street demonstrations for several days from Jan. 8, the day the shutdown was imposed. NGOs tracking deaths from the ensuing crackdown have said their task has been impeded by the blackout, warning that confirmed figures are likely to be far lower than the actual toll. Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-says-3117-killed-in-protests-sparked-by-economic-grievances" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">last week</a> said 3,117 people were killed, the majority of whom they described as members of the security forces or innocent bystanders killed by &quot;rioters.&quot; Iran&#39;s deputy telecommunications minister, Ehsan Chitsaz, was recently quoted in local media as saying the shutdown was estimated to have cost between 4 trillion&nbsp;and 6 trillion rials per day &mdash; around $3 to $4 million. NetBlocks has provided a much higher estimate, saying each day costs Iran more than $37 million.

Middle East

Iran's deputy telecommunications minister says the shutdown is estimated to have cost between four and six trillion rials per day — around $3 million to $4 million; NetBlocks has provided a much higher estimate, saying each day costs Iran more than $37 million.

Iran official says businesses' internet access may be restored in coming days

TEHRAN: The son of Iran&#39;s president, who is also a government adviser, on Saturday called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-says-internet-to-gradually-return-to-normal" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">sentiment</a>. Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, &quot;Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.&quot; &quot;This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,&quot; he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the official IRNA news agency. Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored. Iran&#39;s more than 90 million people have been largely cut off from the internet since authorities imposed a <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-says-3117-killed-in-protests-sparked-by-economic-grievances" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">blackout</a> on Jan. 8 amid major protests sweeping the country. Under the cover of the blackout, they launched a deadly crackdown on protesters, with rights groups documenting several thousand dead and the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights saying the final figure could top 25,000. The Iranian government has put the toll at 3,117, including 2,427 it has labelled &quot;martyrs,&quot; a term used to distinguish members of the security forces and innocent bystanders from those described by authorities as &quot;rioters&quot; incited by the <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-says-us-still-watching-iran-fleet-sailing-to-region" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">US</a> and Israel. The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored. He pointed to concerns about the &quot;release of videos and images related to last week&#39;s &#39;protests that turned violent&#39;&quot; as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticised the logic. Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted &quot;&#39;He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.&#39;&quot; The president&#39;s son blamed foreign interference for the protests&#39; violent turn, but said &quot;the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed.&quot; He went on to say that &quot;the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won&#39;t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.&quot;

Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father Masoud was elected president in 2024, said, 'Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.'

Son of Iranian president calls for end to internet blackout

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: A man kneels in the dirt, hands clasped, pleading for his life. Gunshots crack. His body slumps forward. The video, filmed in India&#39;s remote northeastern state of Manipur, would be viewed by millions within hours. The graphic clip has become the latest flashpoint in an <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/civil-unrest-under-bjp-manipurs-ethnic-conflict-becomes-indias-warning-sign" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">ethnic&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/civil-unrest-under-bjp-manipurs-ethnic-conflict-becomes-indias-warning-sign" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">conflict</a>&nbsp;that has killed at least 260 people and displaced 60,000 since May 2023. It is a crisis that has left the state effectively partitioned along ethnic lines, yet remains largely unknown beyond India&#39;s borders. <div class="fr-embed"><div></div></div> The victim, identified by the Press Trust of India as Mayanglambam Rishikanta Singh, was a member of the Meitei community. His wife belongs to the Kuki ethnic minority.&nbsp; According to Indian media reports, four masked men abducted Singh and his wife from their home in the Tuibong area on Jan. 8, 2026. His wife was released. Singh was not. Vijatia Singh, the deputy editor of The Hindu, one of India&#39;s leading newspapers, reported that the video was filmed and &quot;published on WhatsApp within an hour&quot; of the killing. <div class="fr-embed"><div></div></div> Soon, the town of Kakching erupted in protests. Demonstrators burned tires on roads and shut down markets, according to journalists covering the unrest. The Press Trust of India attributed the killing to &quot;suspected Kuki militants,&quot; alleging the gunmen belonged to the United Kuki National Army, a group that has not signed a ceasefire agreement with Indian authorities. <div class="fr-embed"><div class="fr-embed"><div></div></div></div> But in Manipur, a state where ethnic identity determines which roads you can travel and which neighborhoods you can enter, the question of who killed Singh has become inseparable from a larger, more intractable question: How did India allow an entire state to collapse into segregation? A state divided by invisible lines Manipur, a lush, mountainous state bordering Myanmar, is now effectively two separate territories. The Imphal Valley, a flat basin comprising just 8% of the state&#39;s land, is home to the Meitei, a predominantly Hindu ethnic group that makes up roughly 44% of Manipur&#39;s 3 million people, according to India&#39;s 2011 census. Surrounding the valley are hills controlled by the Kuki-Zo, a collective term for more than 20 tribes, most of them <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/opposition-slams-indias-ruling-bjp-after-attack-on-christian-pastor" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Christian</a>, who hold official &quot;Scheduled Tribe&quot; status under India&#39;s Constitution. That designation grants them land protections and government job quotas that the Meitei do not have. Between the two communities lies what locals call a &quot;buffer zone,&quot; though authorities prefer terms like &quot;sensitive areas&quot; or &quot;vulnerable stretches.&quot; It is a no man&#39;s land patrolled by federal paramilitary forces where neither Meitei nor Kuki can pass without risking their lives. The violence that created this division began on May 3, 2023, after a Manipur High Court order directed the state government to consider granting Scheduled Tribe status to the Meitei. For the Kuki, the ruling represented an existential threat. Scheduled Tribe protections, established decades ago to shield indigenous communities from land grabs, would suddenly extend to the state&#39;s dominant ethnic group. &quot;This is what happens when decision-makers are fed a false sense of normalcy,&quot; said an analysis by Vantage Monitor, an open-source intelligence firm that tracks conflicts from an &lsquo;Indian lens&rsquo;. &quot;On paper, things may look calm. On the ground, fear, armed groups, and deep mistrust still exist.&quot; <div class="fr-embed"><div></div></div>Conflict with roots in land and identity The tensions in Manipur did not begin in 2023. For years, the state government, led until early 2025 by Chief Minister N Biren Singh, pursued&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/bjp-funds-linked-to-government-contractors-in-northeast-india-report" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">policies</a>&nbsp;that many Kuki leaders described as discriminatory. Authorities conducted eviction drives in hill districts, clearing villages they claimed were encroaching on protected forests. Singh&#39;s government publicly referred to some Kuki groups as &quot;illegal immigrants&quot; and &quot;narco-terrorists,&quot; according to Human Rights Watch. The Meitei, meanwhile, argued they were being squeezed. Community leaders pointed to census data showing their share of Manipur&#39;s population had dropped from 59% in 1951 to 44% in 2011. Confined to the valley, they could not legally buy land in the hills. But hill tribes, they said, faced no such restrictions in purchasing valley property. <div class="fr-embed"><div></div></div> When violence erupted, both sides were armed. Over 6,000 weapons and 600,000 rounds of ammunition were looted from state armories in the conflict&#39;s early days, according to official figures cited by Amnesty International. Vigilante groups emerged. The Meitei formed militias with names like Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun. The Kuki relied on a patchwork of militant organizations, some with histories stretching back to separatist insurgencies of the 1990s. The Indian Supreme Court later described the situation as an &quot;absolute breakdown of law and order.&quot; It noted that the police appeared &quot;inept&quot; and, in some cases, &quot;colluded with the perpetrators.&quot; International alarm over government complicity The conflict drew international condemnation after a video surfaced in July 2023 showing two Kuki women being paraded naked by a Meitei mob before being gang-raped. United Nations experts said the footage provided evidence of &quot;systematic sexual violence&quot; and stated that Indian authorities were potentially aiding &quot;the incitement of racial and religious hatred.&quot; Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both documented what they describe as a &quot;pro-Meitei bias&quot; in the state government&#39;s response. According to these organizations, authorities provided &quot;political patronage&quot; to Meitei vigilante groups and failed to prosecute mob leaders. The Indian government imposed one of the world&#39;s longest internet shutdowns in response to the crisis, cutting access for over 200 days in 2023. The blackout, which continued intermittently through 2025, made it difficult for journalists and aid workers to document abuses or coordinate relief efforts, according to the United Nations. In relief camps housing displaced Kuki families, conditions have been described by Amnesty International as &quot;inhumane,&quot; with severe shortages of clean water, sanitation and medical care. As of May 2025, India&#39;s Union Home Ministry had allocated approximately $256,000 for relief efforts. An amount aid workers told the organization was &quot;falling far too short of needs.&quot; Authorities also targeted critics. Journalists, activists and fact-finding teams, including members of the Editors Guild of India, faced criminal charges such as sedition and defamation after publishing reports critical of the government&#39;s handling of the violence, according to Human Rights Watch. Division remains On Feb. 9, 2025, Chief Minister Singh resigned after audio recordings surfaced that allegedly linked him to the instigation of ethnic violence. Four days later, the Indian government imposed President&#39;s Rule, suspended the state legislature and placed governance under a federally appointed governor. The move was meant to ensure neutral administration. Yet even under federal control, the state remains split. Kuki political leaders, represented by the Kuki-Zo Council, continue to demand what they call a &quot;separate administration&quot; &mdash; in effect, a new territory carved from Manipur where they would govern themselves. On Jan. 13, 2026, the council and 10 elected Kuki lawmakers formally resolved to boycott any future Manipur government unless New Delhi provides a &quot;written, time-bound commitment&quot; to their autonomy demands, according to official council resolutions. Approximately 40,000 to 60,000 Kuki remain in displacement camps as of late 2025, according to academic studies tracking the crisis. Researchers have documented what they describe as a &quot;mental health emergency&quot; in these camps, with widespread cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and suicides among elderly residents. Neither community can travel freely. Meitei cannot access the hills. Kuki cannot enter Imphal, the state capital, where hospitals, universities and government offices are located. The buffer zone remains. &quot;Human life is indispensable,&quot; Vantage Monitor wrote in its analysis of Singh&#39;s killing. &quot;Once lost, no statement, inquiry, or reassurance can bring it back. If ground reality is misread today, the long-term consequences, politically, socially, and strategically, will be far more damaging tomorrow. This is not just a law-and-order failure. It is a warning signal.&quot; For now, that warning remains unheeded. The video of Singh&#39;s execution continues to spread on encrypted messaging apps, watched by millions who still cannot answer a simpler question: In a democracy of 1.4 billion, how does an entire state descend into ethnic partition while the world looks away?

India

Ethnic violence has effectively partitioned India's Manipur state into heavily armed, segregated zones, killing at least 260 and displacing 60,000 since May 2023. Yet the crisis remains largely unknown internationally.

Articles tagged with "internet blackout"

Iran official says businesses' internet access may be restored in coming days

Son of Iranian president calls for end to internet blackout

Execution video exposes how Manipur became India's invisible conflict zone