The state’s response underscores how seriously it views the threat. To disrupt coordination and prevent images of repression from circulating globally, the country has been placed under an unprecedented total communication and internet blackout. At the same time, the regime has deployed its full coercive apparatus. In the absence of full access to news and information, human rights organisations estimate that more than 6,000 people could have been killed, with thousands more arrested, injured – or disappeared into Iran’s opaque detention system.