Tehran, Iran – Iran’s economic outlook appears increasingly grim more than three weeks after the start of what became one of the most comprehensive and prolonged state-imposed internet blackouts in history, impacting a population of more than 90 million people. Iranian authorities abruptly cut off all communications across the country on the night of January 8, at the height of nationwide protests that the United Nations and international human rights organisations say were suppressed with the use of deadly force. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Most of Iran’s internet bandwidth, local and international phone calls and SMS text messages have been restored over recent days. But most of the country is still unable to freely connect to the global internet amid heavy filtering by the state. The increased bandwidth allows more people to circumvent state restrictions using a variety of proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs), but solutions are often costly and temporary. Last week, Information and Communications Technology Minister Sattar Hashemi told reporters his ministry estimates that the Iranian economy suffered at least …