
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE: Iran’s Judiciary Blocks a Move to Restore Internet Access
Iran’s judiciary suspended the presidential body responsible for ordering the restoration of civilian internet access in Iran Tuesday.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, organized a presidential body called the Special Headquarters for Organizing and Governing the Country’s Cyberspace on May 12. The body, under the direction of Pezeshkian, decided to restore internet access Monday, but it was too good to last: The judiciary reversed the decision only a day later.
The presidential body appears to have sidelined the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top security agency, which holds ultimate authority on internet access.

Mizan Online, the judiciary’s website, said the suspension followed a “filing of complaints,” without specifying who filed the complaints or what the complaints pertained to.
Iran had imposed an internet shutdown as part of a brutal crackdown on the January protests that saw the murder of tens of thousands of protesters, plunging the country into a digital blackout that it then reimposed when the United States and Israel commenced their joint military campaign against the authoritarian regime on Feb. 28.
The near-total internet blackout constituted “the longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record in any country,” according to internet monitor NetBlocks.