The executive decision to restore international internet access in Iran has rapidly devolved into an open institutional warfare within the echelons of power. The Iranian Judiciary has directly intervened to freeze a government resolution that was slated to terminate a devastating, months-long network blackout.
Read also Behind the Scenes: The US “Betrayal Message” to Ain el-Tineh
While Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian framed the digital restoration as a necessary response to mounting public discontent and severe macroeconomic deterioration, the swift, aggressive retaliation from his hardline political rivals exposes a profound systemic fracture over cyberspace governance. Observers note that the crisis has transcended the internet issue itself, morphing into a raw power struggle over the country’s ultimate domestic balance of power.
The government’s initial move coincided with circulating diplomatic reports regarding a preliminary US-Iran understanding to defuse regional conflicts. Against this backdrop, news of the imminent reconnection of global internet services after a three-month blackout was widely greeted by citizens as a long-awaited glimmer of hope. Both Government Spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani and Telecoms Minister Sattar Hashemi explicitly confirmed that Pezeshkian’s directives to reactivate the network were entering the implementation phase.
The “Digital Oxygen” and Its Hardline Opponents
The de-escalation path was engineered through an emergency committee formed last week by direct executive order from Pezeshkian, acting in his dual capacity as President of the Republic and Chairman of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). During the committee’s inaugural session, an overwhelming majority voted in favor of immediate restoration, with only three members opposing. Following the vote, the Deputy Minister of Communications, Ehsan Chitsaz, remarked:
Read also Behind the Scenes: The “Secret Saturday Dinner” Between Washington and Tehran
“The internet is the oxygen of our digital economy, the lifeline of hope for our youth, and the cornerstone of public trust. No nation can connect to the future by severing its connection to the world.”
However, Iranian media quickly unmasked the influential hardliners behind the dissenting votes: Peyman Jebelli, Head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), and Mohammad Aghamiri, Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. Aghamiri remains a highly controversial figure; appointed under the late Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, his tenure has faced severe domestic criticism due to his relative youth, lack of technical background, and deep nepotistic ties to the ruling elite. Aghamiri is the son of the president of Shahid Beheshti University and the son-in-law of Mohammad Javad Larijani—a prominent hardliner notorious for his rigid stance against political and social liberties.
Further exposing the structural blockade, Mohammad Sarafraz, the former head of state media and a current Cyberspace Council member, revealed that the Council had completely failed to convene a single session over the past year. Instead, specific factions focused their energy on attempting to import highly advanced Chinese monitoring and filtering equipment designed to achieve total digital isolation.
“Internet Pro” and the Collapse of Security Pretexts
The Pezeshkian administration’s rush to restore the grid was also driven by a predatory economic scheme launched by state-aligned telecom monopolies. During the blackout, these companies began commercializing premium packages dubbed “Internet Pro” at astronomical prices. Insiders reveal that the primary objective of this scheme was to extract massive profit margins from desperate businesses to liquidate the telecom companies’ mounting debts to state contractors.
IT experts argue that this commercialization completely dismantles the state’s national security pretexts used to justify the initial blackout. Industry analysts are openly asking: How can financial premiums suddenly neutralize a “national security threat” and grant high-paying users safe passage to the global web?
Furthermore, the occurrence of multiple high-profile assassinations during the recent forty-day conflict with the US and Israel—executed while the domestic internet was fully severed—has solidified public conviction that digital censorship yields zero defensive deterrence. Concurrently, the black market for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) recorded unprecedented financial windfalls over the last quarter, with observers noting that the financial beneficiaries of this lucrative, underground digital economy are actively lobbying to keep the network blocked.
The Judicial Freeze and the “Two-Brained Regime”
Despite the Cabinet’s official decree, the country was hit by a political shockwave when the Judiciary’s Court of Administrative Justice issued an injunction halting the execution of the government’s committee resolution pending a review of formal legal complaints. This judicial maneuver effectively paralyzes the re-connection process and technically exposes any executive official who enforces the unblocking—including the President and the Telecoms Minister—to criminal prosecution.
However, constitutional experts assert that because Pezeshkian’s directive was formulated in his capacity as the head of the Supreme National Security Council, it holds absolute statutory immunity if it receives the explicit backing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. If the Supreme Leader endorses the decree, no judicial body possesses the constitutional jurisdiction to obstruct it.
The independent investigative outlet Entekhab subsequently identified the four hardline plaintiffs who filed the judicial injunction: Kamyar Thaqafi, Reza Taghipour, Rassoul Jalili, and Mohammad Hassan Entezari. All four are staunch opponents of the Pezeshkian administration. Rassoul Jalili, a close ally of ultra-conservative figure Saeed Jalili, is widely known as the “Father of Filtering” in Iran and owns primary corporations specializing in state network security architecture.
This administrative paralysis reflects a deep institutional rift over crisis management. Hamshahri, a state daily run by the Tehran Municipality, fiercely condemned the unblocking order, claiming it sabotages the “unity of command” during a state of war. In a vitriolic legislative speech, MP Hamid Rasaei labeled the President’s emergency committee “illegal” and claimed its decisions directly violated intelligence agency directives. Rasaei further attacked the legitimacy of First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref chairing the committee, citing the fact that Aref’s son resides in the United States.
Read also Exclusive: Hezbollah’s Ultimate Dilemma: Disarmament or Total Destruction…
Prominent Iranian political analyst Hamid Asefi masterfully diagnosed the domestic crisis, describing the current governance framework as “an X-ray of a two-brained regime.” Asefi noted that while the executive branch presses the “connect” button with one hand, deep-state institutions pull the plug with the other. In the morning, the government promises a “digital breakthrough,” but by evening, the hardline judiciary locks the decision inside the “bureaucratic freezer.”
This is not a mere regulatory dispute; it is a structural war inside what Asefi labels the “Republic of Anxiety.” The presidency, the judiciary, intelligence apparatuses, and shadow centers of clerical influence are pulling Iran in completely opposite directions, leaving ordinary Iranian citizens as the ultimate casualties of the conflict.
The question dominating Tehran tonight remains: Can the Pezeshkian reformist government successfully assert its executive sovereignty to restore the digital grid, or will the entrenched beneficiaries of digital isolation succeed once again in suffocating systemic change?
