comedyIran taking steps to prevent anti-establishment protests, Tehrancomedy

Iran is taking steps to prevent anti-establishment protests, with checkpoints appearing across the streets of the capital, internet access restricted, and mass text warnings sent to residents.

Residents in Tehran have reported the presence of new security checkpoints across the city, where people are being stopped and searched.

According to local accounts, some of these checkpoints have been set up under footbridges and inside road tunnels. This follows reports that several checkpoints located in the middle of roads were previously targeted by drone strikes.

Local media reported that a number of Iranian security personnel were killed in Israeli strikes on four checkpoints across Tehran on 11 March.

Fars said unofficial counts indicated that around 10 members of the security forces were killed in strikes in four districts of the capital.

a man in his twenties explained his strategy for getting through a checkpoint, where he said he was once stopped and his car was searched.

“I started saying things like, ‘Thanks for your hard work,’ as if they were genuinely putting in a lot of effort and I appreciated it,” he said.

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Security forces let him go after the search.

“I always wear colourful clothes. But now I don’t,” said a woman, also in her twenties. “I’m scared of their patrols, worried that if I wear something too bright it might annoy them.”

Restricted internet hinders co-ordination
Another man, also in his twenties, sells secure internet connections to some people, allowing them to bypass the government-imposed nationwide blackout.

It is still very difficult to contact those inside Iran during the internet outage that has been in place since the start of the war, but tech-savvy residents have been using SpaceX’s Starlink devices and sharing their connection with others.

Restricting internet access not only restricts communication with the outside world, but also limits protesters’ ability to mobilise, plan and communicate among each other. Encrypted messaging apps and platforms often function as tools for organising rallies, sharing protest locations, and circulating calls to action.

When these platforms are unavailable, coordination becomes far more difficult.

The man selling internet connections the of his fear when a taxi he was travelling in passed through a checkpoint in a tunnel in Tehran.

“What I do as a job is considered a crime in the Islamic Republic,” he explains. “I was really worried, because I had my laptop and phone with me.”

“Luckily, they didn’t search the taxi,” he says.

Iranian police have arrested a person in southern Fars Province over allegedly setting up a network to sell “unfiltered” internet via Starlink, according to a report by semi-official Mehr News Agency on 12 March.

Deputy Commander of the Fars Province Police has said that a 37-year-old man who had “set up a network across several provinces of the country to sell unfiltered internet via Starlink has been arrested” and added that a “Starlink device and related equipment were discovered at the suspect’s hideout”.

Using Starlink in Iran carries a punishment of up to two years in prison and authorities have reportedly been searching for Starlink dishes to stop people from connecting to the internet.

Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on 10 March that the authorities were working to restore internet access “for those who can broadcast the country’s voice to the world”.

For now, rates for internet access being sold on the Telegram messaging app seen by the are around $6 (£4.50) for 1 gigabytes of data – a high price in a country where the average monthly salary is estimated to be between $200 to $300 (£151-226).