Firuzeh Mahmoudi is rubbing her temples. Speaking on a video call from her home in San Francisco, she seems tired, drained. “Things are not getting better, Iran is not doing great,” she says.
It’s September 23, four days after the Iranian government shut down the internet in the northern Kurdish city of Sanandaj. Not long after Mahmoudi and I spoke, the Iranian government blocked access to Instagram and WhatsApp (estimated to be used by 70% of Iranian adults) and shut down the internet for hours each day so that even basic communication, let alone work, became almost impossible.
The internet disruptions followed several days of nationwide, anti-government protests in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was in the custody of Iran’s vicious and widely reviled morality police.
At least 76 people have been killed during the protests, human rights groups say, and over 700 arrested. The police said Amini died of a heart attack. But her father insisted she was healthy. Photos that emerged after her death were gut-wrenching: her eyes were purple and swollen. She appeared to have been tortured.
