Iran sees 'major' internet disruption

Iran suffered a "major disruption'' in internet service Wednesday as calls for renewed protests again saw demonstrators on the streets weeks after the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the country's morality police, an advocacy group said.

The demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini have become one of the greatest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the country's 2009 Green Movement protests. Demonstrators have included oil workers, high school students and women marching without their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Calls for protests beginning at noon Wednesday saw a massive deployment of riot police and plainclothes officers throughout Tehran, witnesses said. They also described disruptions affecting their mobile internet services.

NetBlocks, an advocacy group, said that Iran's internet traffic had dropped to some 25 percent compared to the peak, even during a working day in which students were in class across the country.

"The incident is likely to further limit the free flow of information amid protests,'' NetBlocks said.

Despite the disruption, witnesses saw at least one demonstration in Tehran by some 30 women who had removed their headscarves while chanting: "Death to the dictator!'' Those cries, referring to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can result in a closed-door trial in the country's Revolutionary Court with the threat of a death sentence.

Videos also purported to show demonstrations Wednesday in Baharestan, just southeast of the city of Isfahan, as well as in the southern city of Shiraz and northern city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea. Gathering information about the demonstrations remains difficult amid the internet restrictions and the arrests of at least 40 journalists in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

While the demonstrations have focused on Amini's death, anger has been simmering in Iran for years over the country's cratering economy. Sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program have seen a collapse in the country's rial currency, wiping out the savings of many.