An extraordinarily violent crackdown by Iranian security forces appears to have succeeded for now in driving protesters from the streets, according to activists and analysts who mahttps://abcnews.go.com/International/bloody-crackdown-appears-quelled-iran-protests-now/story?id=129287014naged to speak with people inside the country despite the information blackout.
Demonstrations began in late December with protesters chanting in Tehran against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency before spreading across Iran and becoming more explicitly anti-government. Authorities have shut down the internet in Iran for more than a week as security forces moved to crush the protests.
The internet blackout in Iran continues to make it very difficult to get a clear picture from the ground, but accounts are emerging from people now able to use phone lines, those few with access to working Starlink satellite terminals and Iranians who have recently left the country.
These people describe an eerie calm over Iran's cities, where heavily armed security forces are deployed on the streets enforcing what many are describing as a de-facto curfew.
Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian activist based in Washington, D.C., says he has helped send in hundreds of Starlink terminals to citizen journalists and others in Iran to help get around the government blackout.
How the U.S. and Israel Are Trying to Co-opt Iran's Protests
