Iran shuts down internet as protesters rally over building collapse

Disruption in oil-rich Khuzestan province leaves journalists and activists struggling to confirm events on the ground

Rescue crews work at the site of the 10-storey building that collapsed in Abadan. Reuters

Iran shut down the internet as protesters rallied on Tuesday over a building collapse last week that killed at least 36 people in the country’s south-west.

The internet disruption affected the oil-rich Khuzestan province, leaving journalists and activists struggling to confirm events on the ground or share footage.

Videos of the protests circulated widely online, with some showing officers beating protesters and firing tear gas at them. The number of casualties and arrests remains unclear.

Footage analysed by the Associated Press corresponded to known features of Abadan, about 660 kilometres south-west of the capital, Tehran.

A large section of the unfinished 10-storey Metrol building collapsed in the city of Abadan on May 23 in one of Iran's deadliest disasters in recent years.

Rescue workers pulled three more bodies from the rubble late on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 36 amid fears that more people could be trapped underneath the collapsed structure.

Five of the victims were children, the official IRNA news agency reported. Thirty-seven people were injured in the collapse, with two still in hospital.

Officials said shoddy construction practices, lax regulation and entrenched corruption were to blame, raising questions about the safety of similar buildings in the earthquake-prone country.

Authorities reported that they had moved residents from buildings near the disaster site out of fear that part of the building that remains standing could collapse.

The internet interference in Khuzestan province began in early May, weeks before the collapse of the building, said Amir Rashidi, director of internet security and digital rights at Miaan Group, which focuses on digital security in the Middle East.

The province, home to an ethnic Arab population that has long claimed it is suffering discrimination, was the centre of protests over the sinking economy and rapidly increasing prices of food.

Data shared by the Miaan Group showed that internet disruptions then intensified in the area after the collapse of the building last week.

The disaster ignited widespread anger in Abadan, where residents gathered every night at the site of the collapse to shout slogans against the government, which they accuse of negligence.

Mahsa Alimardani, a senior researcher at Article 19, an international organisation that fights censorship, said authorities appeared to have restricted bandwidth during the day to make it difficult for people to share large files such as video footage without leaving Abadan altogether.

The government in Tehran has shut down the internet during times of unrest and national disasters to limit coverage. At other times, it has allowed the tightly controlled use of a domestic intranet, said the Miaan Group.

Radio and television stations are state controlled and journalists' lives are at stake, activists have said in the past.

Last Friday, as huge crowds took to the streets to chant against top officials, a digital barricade of sorts went up between Iran and the world, data showed.

Only certain government-approved national websites could stream content but not websites based abroad.

“There has been a pattern that we have seen when it gets dark, where Google isn’t working but the website of the Supreme Leader is working well,” Ms Rashidi said.

The Iranian mission at the UN did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The turmoil in the country comes at a time when talks to restore its nuclear deal with world powers have hit a deadlock.

Tension has simmered as Iran accelerates its nuclear programme far beyond the limits of the nuclear deal. Last week, it seized two Greek tankers on a key oil route through the Arabian Gulf.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry criticised the International Atomic Energy Agency over its quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the agency's report, released on Monday, was “not fair and balanced” after it revealed that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile had increased by 18 times since the 2015 nuclear deal.

The UN nuclear watchdog also said that Tehran had repeatedly failed to explain traces of uranium particles that the agency's inspectors found at former undeclared sites in the country, long a sore point between Iran and the agency despite a recent push for a resolution by June.

Mr Khatibzadeh said the agency’s statements “did not reflect the reality of talks between Iran and the agency”.

“The agency should be watchful and not destroy the path we walked down, with difficulty,” he told reporters in Tehran.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian addressed the stalled indirect negotiations with the US, telling reporters he had communicated Tehran's concerns to Vice President Kamala Harris through a third party when they were in Munich earlier this year.

Iran has repeatedly demanded guarantees that no future US president can unilaterally abandon the agreement, as Donald Trump did in 2018. The White House has said it cannot make such a commitment.

Mr Amirabdollahian said he had asked the mediator to “tell Ms Kamala Harris if a group of rebels are going to take over the White House, could you please let us know”.

“Even if rebels take over, they must be committed to international agreements,” Mr Amirabdollahian said.

The White House has not acknowledged any such message.

In a recent interview with France’s Le Figaro newspaper, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said his country was “always glad to help” when asked if Muscat was hosting new secret talks between Iran and the US.

Oman hosted the secret talks that led to the 2015 nuclear deal.

“I am hopeful that we can achieve a new dynamic to reach an agreement,” he said. “It is in the interest of our region and the world.”