Hesam Alaeeddin went to Iranian security forces to ask about his detained brother. He never came home.

The 40-year-old father of two was beaten in custody and died, according to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, a human rights organization that tracks abuses in Iran. His brother had been accused of possessing a Starlink satellite terminal — the flat white dish, made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, that has become the most sought-after piece of contraband in the country.

Other reports paint a starker picture. Exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi said Alaeeddin was killed under torture after being arrested for using Starlink. IranWire reported separately that security forces searched his home and beat him to death at his family’s residence after finding a Starlink device. Euronews noted that neither account could be independently verified, as Iran’s ongoing internet blackout makes outside confirmation nearly impossible. What is clear is that Alaeeddin was buried last Wednesday under police guard, and that his family was reportedly pressured to stay silent.

His death is the human cost of an information war running parallel to the military conflict — a dimension of the crisis largely eclipsed by ceasefire negotiations and diplomatic maneuvering since a US-Israeli ceasefire took effect on April 8.

Sixty Days in the Dark

Iran has now spent more than 60 days under one of the longest-running national internet shutdowns ever recorded. The current blackout began on February 28, when the US and Israel launched airstrikes against Iranian targets. Connectivity dropped to roughly 4 percent of normal levels, according to monitoring group NetBlocks, and has hovered around 1 percent since March.

This is the second such shutdown in 2026. An earlier blackout, imposed on January 8 during mass protests over economic collapse, lasted three weeks. During those protests, between 12,000 and 20,000 people were killed and more than 42,000 arrested, according to UK government estimates drawing on data from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

The regime offers a security rationale. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the internet was cut after authorities “confronted terrorist operations and realised orders were coming from outside the country.” Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said the aim was “to maintain business connectivity during the crisis,” insisting the government is “completely opposed to communication injustice.”

The evidence tells a different story. Iran operates what experts describe as a tiered internet: a state-controlled domestic network available to all, and the global internet reserved for a select few — officials, state journalists, security personnel — through unrestricted “white SIM cards.” In 2025, X’s location data revealed government figures accessing Instagram and Telegram from inside Iran without filters, sparking public outrage.

The Smugglers

Into this gap steps a network of Iranians abroad, moving Starlink terminals across Iran’s borders at considerable personal risk.

“If even one extra person is able to access the internet, I think it’s successful and it’s worth it,” a man using the name Sahand told the BBC, speaking from outside Iran. He has sent a dozen terminals since January through what he described as a “very complex operation.” The purchases are funded by Iranians in the diaspora, he said — not by any government.

The human rights organization Witness estimated in January that at least 50,000 Starlink terminals were operating inside Iran. A volunteer with a Persian-language Telegram marketplace told the BBC that approximately 5,000 terminals have been sold through that channel alone over two and a half years.

The retaliation is swift. Iran passed legislation last year making the use, purchase, or sale of Starlink punishable by up to two years in prison. Importing more than ten devices carries up to ten years.

A digital rights group told the BBC that at least 100 people have been arrested for possession. State media regularly announces seizures. Four people, including two foreign nationals, were detained last month for “importing satellite internet equipment.” Some of those arrested face accusations of espionage or, according to state media, possession of illegal weapons and sending information to “the enemy.”

What Satellite Internet Means for State Power

Starlink’s role in Iran differs from its better-known deployment in Ukraine, where it has been described as indispensable for battlefield communications. In Iran, the technology serves a simpler function: bearing witness. During the January protests, much of the video evidence of extrajudicial killings that reached the outside world is believed to have been transmitted through Starlink connections.

Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights, told the BBC that the information vacuum “allows the state to broadcast its narrative, ie portray protesters as violent actors or foreign agents, while its victims, including those sentenced to death, and informed sources are silenced.”

Sahand is undeterred. “The Iranian regime has proven that during a shutdown, they can kill,” he said. “It is super crucial for Iranians to be able to portray the real picture of the situation on the ground.”

The economic cost of the blackout is staggering — at least $35 million per day, according to Iran’s own communications minister, and possibly double that when indirect losses are included. Online sales have fallen by 80 percent. But the regime appears willing to pay that price for control over information.

Digital rights group Access Now recorded 313 internet shutdowns across 52 countries in 2025 — the highest number since tracking began in 2016. Marwa Fatafta, the group’s regional policy director, warned that blackouts are becoming a “new norm.”

As Alaeeddin’s death demonstrates, the fight over information in Iran is not abstract. It is measured in prison sentences, in funerals held under police watch, and in the white satellite dishes that a network of strangers keeps smuggling across borders — because the alternative is silence.

Sources