SAN FRANCISCO, CA: According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, nearly 100 Starlink are active in Iran, and internet terminals are currently operational in Iran.
In September, the tycoon promised to bring the satellite internet network to the country as Iranian
authorities imposed increasingly severe access restrictions, in what activists called a campaign to limit information about nationwide protests.
restrictions
SAN FRANCISCO, CA: According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, nearly 100 Starlink internet terminals are currently operational in Iran.
“We’re getting close to 100 Starlinks active in Iran,” Musk tweeted on Monday.
Starlink operates over 2,000 tiny satellites that orbit just a few hundred kilometers above Earth and provide internet access.
The post appeared to be referring to the protests that swept Iran and
The world in the aftermath of the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested in
Tehran for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
According to the UN, Iran has launched a crackdown,
arresting approximately 14,000 people and killing 469 protesters, according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR).
In early December, the country’s top security body issued a death toll of more than 200 people, including security officers.
The authorities had already restricted access to Instagram and WhatsApp — the last remaining unfiltered social media services until this autumn
before cracking down on apps
like the Google Play Store and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that seek to circumvent local access restrictions.
Iranians have long used VPNs to access websites blocked in the country. Despite the country’s blocking of the network, government officials, including the foreign minister, have Twitter accounts.