Starlink and Satellite Communications in Conflict Zones

NPR reports that as Iran imposes a near-total internet shutdown to suppress nationwide anti-government protests, thousands of Iranians are staying online via Starlink satellite terminals smuggled into the country despite laws criminalizing their use. U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates more than 2,600 people have been killed in the crackdown (a figure NPR notes it cannot independently verify), and researchers say many protest videos and images now reaching the outside world are moving over Starlink instead of Iran’s tightly controlled domestic networks. Internet-policy expert Farzaneh Badiei argues that shutdowns historically coincide with higher killing rates and calls relatively un-blockable satellite access "an enabler of human rights" because people can still document abuses in real time. Activist Ahmad Ahmadian, whose nonprofit Holistic Resilience helps Iranians evade censorship, estimates roughly 50,000 Starlink dishes are now in Iran, bought abroad and traded on a black market even after parliament criminalized them in 2025. Satellite analyst Jonathan McDowell notes Starlink’s 9,500‑satellite constellation makes it very hard for regimes to “cut the wire,” illustrating how a U.S. private firm has become a strategic communications channel in a foreign government’s violent crackdown and in the U.S. debate over how to respond.