Internet and phones cut in Iran as protesters heed exiled prince's call
for mass demonstration
[January 09, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's government cut off the country
from the internet and international telephone calls Thursday night as a
nighttime demonstration called by the country's exiled crown prince drew
a mass of protesters to shout from their windows and storm the streets.
The protest that went on into Friday morning 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.
The demonstrations that have popped up in cities and rural towns across
Iran continued Thursday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support
of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed
at least 42 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.
Iranian state television's 24-hour news channel did not acknowledge the
internet outage that cut the nation over 85 million people off from the
world, highlighting instead food subsidies in their 7 a.m. Friday
broadcast.
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.”
Thursday's demonstration rallies at home and in street
Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. local (1630 GMT) on
Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighborhoods across Tehran
erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the
dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah,
shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands
could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out.
“Iranians demanded their freedom tonight. In response, the regime in
Iran has cut all lines of communication,” Pahlavi said. “It has shut
down the Internet. It has cut landlines. It may even attempt to jam
satellite signals.”
He went on to call for European leaders to join U.S. President Donald
Trump in promising to “hold the regime to account.”
“I call on them to use all technical, financial, and diplomatic
resources available to restore communication to the Iranian people so
that their voice and their will can be heard and seen," he added. "Do
not let the voices of my courageous compatriots be silenced.”
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Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
speaks during a news conference, June 23, 2025 in Paris. (AP
Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the
response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn
criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war Israel
waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the
shah in some demonstrations, but it isn’t clear whether that’s
support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before
the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials appeared to be taking the planned protests
seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online
claiming security forces would use drones to identify those taking
part.
Iranian officials have not acknowledged the scale of the overall
protests, which raged across many locations Thursday even before the
8 p.m. demonstration. However, there has been reporting regarding
security officials being hurt or killed.
The judiciary's Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered
fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the
semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force
members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan
in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
A deputy governor in Iran's Khorasan Razavi province told Iranian
state television that an attack at a police station killed five
people Wednesday night in Chenaran, some 700 kilometers (430 miles)
northeast of Tehran. Late Thursday, the Revolutionary Guard said two
members of its forces were killed in Kermanshah.
Iran weighs Trump threat
Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As
sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its
rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1.
Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against
Iran’s theocracy.
It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down
harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran
“violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their
rescue.”
Speaking to talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Trump reiterated his pledge.
Iran has “been told very strongly, even more strongly than I’m
speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they’re going to
have to pay hell,” Trump said.
Trump demurred when asked if he'd meet with Pahlavi.
“I’m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that
as president,” Trump said. “I think that we should let everybody go
out there, and we see who emerges.”
Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi remains
imprisoned by authorities after her arrest in December.
“Since Dec. 28, 2025, the people of Iran have taken to the streets,
just as they did in 2009, 2019,” her son Ali Rahmani said. “Each
time, the same demands came up: an end to the Islamic Republic, an
end to this patriarchal, dictatorial and religious regime, the end
of the clerics, the end of the mullahs' regime.”
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