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Burning garbage cans in Tehran (on September 20)
Photo: AP
The situation in Iran is becoming increasingly tense after days of nationwide protests.
Now the internet has been massively restricted.
Mobile networks are "largely switched off," the organization Netblocks reported on Wednesday.
With the strictest restrictions since the November 2019 protests, Instagram was also one of the last free social networks to be blocked.
WhatsApp, like Instagram part of the meta group, only works to an extremely limited extent.
Experts fear that the police and security forces could now put down the demonstrations.
The protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
A week ago she was arrested by the vice squad because of her "un-Islamic outfit".
What exactly happened to Amini after her arrest is unclear, but she fell into a coma and died in a hospital on Friday.
Critics accuse the morality police of using violence.
The police firmly deny the allegations.
Nevertheless, the authorities initiated investigations.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed his condolences and grief over the death of the young woman to Mahsa Amini's family this week, according to a senior adviser.
Information about the number of victims varies
Since then, thousands of people have been demonstrating across the country against the government's repressive course.
According to official information, at least four other people have been killed in the protests in the past two days.
According to the Iranian media and a local prosecutor, the number of dead has increased to eight.
Among them are said to be a police officer and a member of a pro-government militia.
However, the Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw said ten demonstrators were killed by Iranian security forces, three of them on Wednesday.
Iranian officials deny this.
According to them, armed dissidents probably shot the demonstrators.
The information provided by both sides could not initially be verified independently.
jok/dpa
