ABC News – January 18, 2026
By: Patrick Reevell, Somayeh Malekian, and Nadine El-Bawab
“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 managed 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.
…
“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.
“Unfortunately, the crackdown has been so severe the protests have pretty much come to a halt,’ he said told ABC News on Thursday.
“There are security forces everywhere — there is a state of fear,’ said Yahyanejad, who co-founded Net Freedom Pioneers, an anti-censorship group.”
Read the full article at ABC News.