Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Iran was under a total Internet blackout amid a crackdown on escalating unrest over economic conditions that has resulted in dozens of demonstrators, including children, being killed since the protests erupted almost two weeks ago.
The outage Thursday night, effectively cutting people off from information, each other and the outside world, came as the protests spread to all of Iran's 31 provinces, but it was unclear if the blackout was due to the country's theocratic regime pulling the plug as they have in previous civil unrest.
Internet freedom watchdog NetBlocks, which reported the outage followed blackouts in the western city of Kermanshah earlier in the day, said the country was still offline at 8 a.m. local time.
"Iran has now been offline for 12 hours, with national connectivity flatlining at around 1% of ordinary levels," the group said.
Diaspora Iranians online have said they were unable to contact relatives by any means, including landline telephone.
