Iran threatens to strike US air bases as Trump vows ‘strong action’ if protesters are hanged: Live updates

Iran’s internet is likely to remain disconnected for the next ‘one to two weeks’, reports Fars News Agency.

The internet blackout has made it difficult for the extent of the protests to be analysed.

Hengaw, the Norway-based human rights group, said it has heard ‘no information’ about the fate of Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old protester who is slated to be executed today.

The group said: ‘There is still no precise information available about his current condition due to the loss of contact and lack of access to his family.

‘Because the internet shutdown and severe communication restrictions continue, Hengaw has so far been unable to establish contact with Erfan Soltani’s family.’

Iran’s justice minister Amir Hossein Rahimi has said in an interview that anyone who was out on the streets after January 8 is guilty of taking part in an ‘internal war’.

He said the government is considering all those protesting before this date to be legitimate, given their anxieties over the state of the economy.

But he argued that anyone on the streets after this date is simply trying to take the regime down.

He said: ‘Anyone who has been arrested in that time frame is guilty because they were at the scene’.

Rahimi added that the punishments protesters will receive will depend on their ‘crimes’.

It comes after the head of Iran’s judiciary said that protesters charged with ‘terrorist’ activities will be given ‘priority for trial and punishment’.

Hossein Mousavi Eftekhari, the commander of Iran’s aerospace force, says Iran is at its highest level of readiness to respond to any attack.

Hossein Mousavi Eftekhari, the commander of Iran’s aerospace force, has reportedly claimed that Tehran’s missile stockpile has increased since June.

That month saw Israel and the US hit military, nuclear and civilian targets in the so-called 12-Day War, with an aim of severely weakening Iran.

Iranian state television said on Wednesday that a mass funeral in Tehran will include the 300 bodies of security force members and civilians kills in the unrest over the past few weeks.

The funeral is expected to take place at Tehran University under heavy security.

According to NetBlocks, an internet activity monitor, Iran is in its sixth day of an communications blackout.

The brutal regime instate the blanket ban last Thursday, amid the growing mass protests.

Though Iranians were previously able to use Starlink satellite internet terminals to get messages and information out of the country, it appears there have been jammed by what experts are calling military-grade technology