We call on the international community to demand the immediate restoration of internet access to the Iranian civilian population. Since 28 February 2026, the Islamic Republic has imposed a near-total digital blackout on 90 million people, not as a consequence of war, but as a deliberate act of its own government. While bombs fall and families search desperately for news of their loved ones, Iranian civilians have been denied the one tool that could tell them where it is safe to go, whether their families are alive, and what is actually happening in their country. This is a violation of international humanitarian law. It may constitute a war crime. It must end NOW.

We, therefore, call upon international institutions, governments, and organisations to take the following immediate actions:

1. Formally condemn the internet shutdown imposed by the Islamic Republic of Iran on its civilian population during armed conflict, as a violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Human Rights Law (IHRL), and basic principles of human dignity.
2. Demand immediate restoration of internet access for all Iranian civilians, unconditionally and without delay.
3. Investigate under international law whether the shutdown constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, particularly given its role in preventing civilians from receiving evacuation warnings during active military strikes.
4. Call on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to publicly condemn the shutdown as incompatible with the principles of its own Constitution, and to facilitate coordination between satellite internet providers, including commercial and humanitarian operators, to explore emergency civilian connectivity options for the Iranian population outside the regime's control.
5. Apply targeted sanctions on the Iranian officials responsible for ordering and implementing the communications blackout, under the principle of command responsibility.
6. Support documentation efforts by NGOs, journalists, and human rights monitors who are attempting to document the blackout's consequences, and ensure their findings are preserved for future accountability processes.
7. Establish a binding international legal norm classifying deliberate civilian internet shutdowns during armed conflict as violations of IHL, subject to the same accountability mechanisms as other war crimes.

I. The facts on the ground
On 28 February 2026, hours after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the Iranian regime imposed a nationwide internet shutdown. According to Cloudflare Radar, internet traffic in Iran dropped by 98% on that date, a near-complete blackout. As of 6–7 March 2026, only approximately 1% of normal internet traffic remains accessible across the country, according to internet monitoring group NetBlocks, which confirmed that the blackout had entered its second consecutive week.

Crucially, while ordinary Iranian civilians have been cut off from the global internet, Iranian officials and their allies have remained actively online, some using foreign platforms to run information operations targeting international audiences. This asymmetry is not incidental; it is the architecture of authoritarian control.

The regime has used its National Information Network, a parallel state-run intranet developed over the past two decades, to maintain government websites, banking services, and selected domestic platforms, while cutting off all access to the global internet. This infrastructure was purpose-built for exactly this kind of selective disconnection.

A pattern of deliberate shutdowns
The current shutdown does not exist in isolation. The Islamic Republic regime has repeatedly used internet blackouts in Iran as a weapon against its own population:

• 2019: Internet cut during the Bloody November crackdown on fuel-price protesters.
• 2022: WhatsApp and Google Play banned during the Mahsa Jina Amini protests.
• January 2026: The regime shut down the internet and killed tens of thousands during nationwide protests, with the blackout lasting nearly three weeks.
• February–March 2026 (current): A near-total blackout imposed the moment armed conflict began.

The Minister of Communications has publicly acknowledged the economic toll of the shutdown on the country. The regime has chosen to bear it. This is not a technical failure or a side-effect of military damage. This is a deliberate policy decision.

The direct threat to civilian lives
The consequences of this blackout are not abstract. They are fatal in their implications:

• Many of Iran's military and strategic targets are located within or near urban areas. The Israeli military has at times issued evacuation warnings for civilian areas ahead of strikes, but exclusively through social media. Due to the blackout, Iranian civilians have no access to these notices.
• Iranians abroad, an estimated diaspora of millions, have been cut off from their families. They cannot confirm whether their loved ones are alive.
• The blackout prevents journalists and human rights monitors from documenting possible international law violations by parties to the conflict.
• Satellite workarounds such as Starlink have been jammed or seized by Iranian authorities. Under Iranian law since 2026, possession of a personal Starlink terminal carries a sentence of 6 months to 10 years imprisonment, or execution.

II. Legal framework: Why this violates International Law
The deliberate imposition of a communications blackout on a civilian population during armed conflict is not a domestic policy question. It is a serious breach of binding IHL and IHRL. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that such shutdowns violate a range of human rights and run contrary to the basic principles of international law.

1.    International Humanitarian Law (IHL):
a)    Geneva Conventions & Additional Protocols (1949/1977)

• Geneva Convention IV, Article 17: Requires that civilians be permitted to transmit family news. A near-total internet blackout directly violates this obligation.
• Additional Protocol I, Article 57 (Precautions in Attack): Imposes a duty on all parties to warn civilians of impending military operations. The blackout renders Iran's civilian population unable to receive such warnings, from any party, making meaningful compliance with this principle impossible.
• The principle of distinction: Civilians who cannot be warned cannot take protective action. A state that deliberately prevents its civilians from receiving life-saving information through the internet bears direct responsibility for the heightened civilian casualties that result.

b)   Customary International Humanitarian Law (International Committee of the Red Cross)

• ICRC Customary IHL Rules on civilian protection establish that infrastructure essential to civilian survival must be protected. Any shutdown of communication networks during conflict must meet the basic IHL principles of necessity and proportionality, a standard that a near-total civilian blackout, imposed unilaterally by the state itself, self-evidently fails.

2.    International Human Rights Law (IHRL):
a)    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

• Article 19: Guarantees the right to seek, receive, and impart information regardless of frontiers. Iran is a State Party. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that blanket internet shutdowns are incompatible with the requirements of necessity and proportionality under Article 19(3).
• Article 6 (Right to Life): Withholding information about which areas are under bombardment directly and foreseeably endangers the right to life.

b) UN Human Rights Council Resolutions

• UN HRC Resolutions 32/13 (2016) and 47/16 (2021): Affirm that human rights apply online as they do offline, and explicitly condemn intentional internet shutdowns.
• The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has consistently stated that internet shutdowns can never be justified under international human rights law.

The deliberate imposition of a communications blackout on a civilian population during armed conflict, preventing them from receiving evacuation warnings, contacting emergency services, and accessing safety-critical information, while officials remain online, constitutes a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. Internet blackout may rise to the level of a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court if used deliberately as a method of warfare that causes prohibited harm to civilians or civilian objects.

III. Closing statement

Regardless of one's position on the armed conflict itself, one principle transcends political lines: civilians must be able to protect themselves. They must be able to hear a warning before a bomb falls on their street. They must be able to call their family. They must be able to know whether it is safe to stay or flee.
Modern civil defence does not run on physical infrastructure alone. Every other civilian population touched by this conflict receives real-time mobile alerts, digital evacuation routes, up-to-the-minute strike maps, and safety guidance pushed directly to their phones. The internet is not a luxury in wartime. It is infrastructure. It is the difference between knowing where the bombs fell and not knowing whether your neighbourhood still exists. That infrastructure has been deliberately severed, not by those dropping the bombs but by the government that should protect its people, while the very officials who ordered the blackout remain free to post on social media.

The cost of this blackout is measured not only in dollars, though the regime's own Minister of Communications acknowledged losing $35.7 million daily, with independent monitors at NetBlocks placing the true figure even higher, but in the lives of people who did not know to evacuate, in families who do not know if their loved ones survived the night, and in the silence that allows atrocities to occur unseen.
International law was built precisely for moments like this. We call on every individual, organisation, and government that believes in the rule of law and the dignity of human life to sign and share this petition, and to demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran restore internet access to its people immediately.

Sources & References

• NetBlocks - Iran internet blackout enters second week (Iran International, 7 March 2026): https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603072786
• Business Standard/The Conversation - Iran's regime shuts down internet amid war, places civilians in crosshairs (6 March 2026): https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/iran-s-regime-shut-downs-internet-amid-war-places-civilians-in-crosshairs-126030600432_1.html
• Human Rights Watch - Iran: Internet Shutdown Violates Rights, Escalates Risks to Civilians (6 March 2026): https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/06/iran-internet-shutdown-violates-rights-escalates-risks-to-civilians
• Cloudflare Radar - Real-time internet traffic monitoring for Iran
• Wikipedia - 2026 Internet blackout in Iran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Internet_blackout_in_Iran
• ICRC Customary IHL Database: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/home
• UN HRC Resolution 32/13 (2016) and 47/16 (2021) on internet access as a human right