Nationwide internet blackout reported in Iran as protests persist

DUBAI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - A ⁠nationwide internet blackout ⁠was ‍reported in Iran on Thursday, internet monitoring group NetBlocks said, as protests over economic hardships continued around the country.

No ‍further information on the internet outage was immediately available.

Witnesses ​in the capital Tehran and major cities of Mashhad and Isfahan told Reuters that ​protesters gathered again in the streets on Thursday, chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers.

Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's late Shah toppled in ​the 1979 Islamic Revolution, called in a video post on X on Wednesday for more protests.

Posts on social media, which could ​not be independently verified by Reuters, said demonstrators chanted pro-Pahlavi slogans in several cities and ‌towns across Iran.

Iranian state media, however, said cities across the country were calm.

The current protests, the biggest wave of ​dissent in three years, began last ⁠month in Tehran's Grand Bazaar with shopkeepers condemning the rial currency's free fall.

Unrest has since spread nationwide amid ‌deepening distress over economic privations arising from rocketing inflation driven by mismanagement and Western sanctions, and curbs on political and social freedoms.

President Masoud Pezeshkian warned ‌domestic suppliers against hoarding or overpricing goods, state media reported earlier on Thursday.

"People ‌should not feel any shortage in terms of goods' supply and distribution," he said, calling upon his government to ensure adequate supply of goods and monitoring ‍of prices across the country.

Tehran remains under international pressure with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to come ⁠to the aid of protesters if security forces fire on them, seven months after Israeli and U.S. forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Yomna Ehab, Enas Alashray and Dubai Newsroom; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell)

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