Musk to seek Iran sanctions exemption for Starlink

In the wake of outrage across Iran at the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who fell into a coma and died hours after being held by the country’s ‘morality police’, Elon Musk tweeted, 19 September, that he would seek an exemption from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’), which would allow his Starlink company to provide satellite internet services to the country.

The Iranian authorities are reported to have clamped down on internet use in the days since Amini’s death. According to NetBlocks – which describes itself as ‘a global internet monitor working at the intersection of digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance’ –  network data ‘confirm a near-total disruption to internet service in parts of Kurdistan province in west Iran from the evening of Monday 19 September 2022. The regional telecommunications blackout in and around Sanandaj follows a partial disruption to internet service in Tehran and other parts of the country on Friday when protests first broke out. Access to Instagram was subsequently restricted nationally on Wednesday 21 September.’

Reuters reported an unnamed OFAC official as saying that the Treasury ‘welcomes applications for licenses to authorize activities supporting internet freedom in Iran.’

The White House said that while the authorization would be a matter for OFAC, ‘We have, of course, in the past provided for various forms of exemptions for the Iranian people’s ability to communicate with each other and with the world.’