SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced that his business would seek an exemption from Iranian sanctions in order to offer its Starlink satellite internet service there.
On Monday, Musk posted the comment on Twitter after he was asked to give the satellite-based internet stations by several users on Twitter.
This development comes at a time when there were numerous protests in Iran following the murder of a woman in police custody.
The country’s moral police detained Mahsa Amini, 22, for failing to cover her hair with a hijab. Amini later died in custody.
Despite her family’s claims that she had bruises on her legs and no prior history of heart issues, the police claimed that she died of a heart attack.
On Monday, during the third day of rallies, security forces opened fire on protestors in her hometown of Saqez, in Iran’s Kurdish area, which resulted in the killing of two people.
According to the human rights group Hengaw, five people were killed and 15 were injured in Dehgolan, another town in the Kurdish area, while two more people died in the village of Divandarreh from “direct fire”.
Internet monitoring organization NetBlocks noted on Monday that internet access had been “near-total” disrupted in the capital of the Kurdish region, which they linked to the protests.
Access to social media and some information is severely limited in Iran.
Iran has been subject to sanctions for its nuclear activities over the past few decades.
As a part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear agreement signed in 2015, certain restrictions were eased.
However, when the US withdrew from the agreement under then-president Donald Trump in 2018, new sanctions were put in place and Tehran began to compromise on the deal’s obligations.
Further information on Musk’s plans to apply for an exemption has not been provided.
