Iran diary 'Outage left us no way to communicate'

The internet in Iran was down for a full three days at the end of last week and there was no way to communicate with others.

- As told to Jedidajah Otte

The internet in Iran was down for a full three days at the end of last week and there was no way to communicate with others. This outage has added to people's fear and anxiety as we no longer knew which cities had been bombed or which areas were under evacuation orders.

If the internet outage continues, many jobs will be lost.

The government has arrested scores of people on charges of espionage and collaborating with Israel; people fear the regime is planning to execute them. Just today, on the national television news, arrests and executions were announced. It's frightening because even if these individuals were spies, a fair trial should take weeks to prove such a charge.

The government has deployed police patrols and checkpoints at entrances of various cities and main streets, according to friends and relatives of mine. I see them every day in Kerman. They are even randomly confiscating mobile phones, searching cars when entering and leaving the city, and also on the main streets during normal traffic. It hasn't happened to me yet.