How journalists cover from Iran without the Internet

Israeli coordinator and American strikes Bombing a military complex in Tehran on Saturday, killing dozens of senior regime figures, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Within hours, the government imposed Almost complete internet outageIsolating the country from the outside world. Mostafa Zadeh, an international journalist based in Tehran, tells WIRED Middle East that he wasn’t surprised when “the United States hit, nor when his phone network went out and his fixed Internet lines followed suit.”

“It is very similar to the state’s response to the security crackdown in January, and even the bouts of unrest that preceded it,” Zadeh says. The government has Routinely cut off internet access During crises, security issues are usually the cause.

“The Iranian government’s primary interest is to prevent contact between Israeli intelligence agents and any communications inside the country,” he explains. “But the brunt of this policy falls on journalists and local media workers who lose access to their essential tools.”

Journalists, activists and ordinary citizens trying to document what is happening on the ground face the choice of finding a way around the restrictions – risking arrest – or remaining silent.

“Journalists pay a heavy price,” Zadeh says. “The right to information is always the first casualty when the government (prioritizes) its security goals.”

Frequent power outages

during Protests Which erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, authorities repeatedly stifled or partially cut off communications in an attempt to disrupt communication and coordination networks. Witnesses said the unrest unfolding now bore striking similarities to the lockdown four years ago, when families were suddenly unable to reach their loved ones, protesters were cut off from each other, and the world was blind to events inside the country.

During the lockdown last February, Zadeh was somewhat prepared, arranging a five-day trip to Türkiye so he could continue working. But he wasn’t so lucky during the lockdown before that, amid a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in 2025. The American newspaper he was secretly writing about stopped listening to him, and its editor feared the worst.

This time, though, he managed to reach A Starlink connection, Zadeh chose not to use it. “The risk of Iranian intelligence discovering and tracking the satellite signal was very high,” he says. “Arrest on these grounds could lead to charges of treason or espionage.”

Zadeh says many of his colleagues made the same decision. But others remained defiant.

The sweeping legal changes introduced in late 2025 saw Iran noticeably Tighten Its espionage laws. Under the amended provisions, anyone accused of spying, especially for Israel or the United States, now faces the death penalty and confiscation of their property.

Under siege report

Iranian journalists and activists’ strategies include encrypted messaging applications such as signal Threema, international phone calls, SMS messages, and videos taken by citizens, which are smuggled out of the country in encrypted form.

Irfan Khorshidi runs a human rights organization outside Iran but leads a large team inside Tehran. Before the January protests, his group smuggled Starlink terminals to dissidents. For the first time ever, his team was able to send reports, videos and photos in near real-time.

Khorshidi says: “It is the only means that allows human rights organizations to transmit accurate and reliable information to the outside world.” “Before Starlink, internet outages left huge gaps in the documentation of human rights violations.”

To overcome some of these gaps, media organizations and human rights groups working in Iran rely on high-resolution images from commercial providers such as Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs, supplemented by medium-resolution data from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus programme.