Hackers target Iran state TV's satellite transmission to air message from exiled 'crown prince'
The brief takeover of Iranian state TV signals underscores growing unrest and external pressure on Tehran as protests continue and US-Iran tensions escalate.
Hackers disrupted Iranian state television satellite transmissions to air footage supporting the country's exiled “crown prince” and calling on security forces to not “point your weapons at the people,” footage online showed, the latest disruption to follow nationwide protests in the country.
The hacking on Sunday night comes as the tensions remain high between the United States and Iran over anti-government protests after President Donald Trump drew red lines for the country.
A US aircraft carrier, which days earlier had been in the South China Sea, passed Singapore overnight to enter the Strait of Malacca — putting it on a route that could bring it to the Middle East.
The footage aired on Sunday night across multiple channels broadcast by satellite from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the country's state broadcaster.
The video aired two clips of self-declared Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, who was toppled by the Iranian revolution in 1979, then included footage of security forces and others in what appeared to be Iranian police uniforms.
It claimed without offering evidence that others had “laid down their weapons and swore an oath of allegiance to the people.”
“This is a message to the army and security forces,” one graphic read. “Don't point your weapons at the people. Join the nation for the freedom of Iran.”
Social media footage shared abroad, possibly from those with Starlink satellites to get around the internet shutdown, showed the hack in progress across multiple channels. Pahlavi's campaign also shared the footage.
Sunday's hack isn't the first time Iranian airwaves have been disrupted.
In 1986, The Washington Post reported that the CIA supplied Pahlavi’s allies “a miniaturised television transmitter for an 11-minute clandestine broadcast” to Iran that pirated the signal of two stations in the Islamic Republic.
Pahlavi’s father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled Iran ahead of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Pahlavi, the son, urged protesters onto the streets on January 8.
However, how much support Pahlavi has inside Iran remains an open question.