More than 100 million people in Ethiopia were affected by a three-week shutdown in July 2020, said the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association. Immediately after the shutdown began, large numbers of Bangladesh police and soldiers reportedly entered the camps, leading to reports of arrests, beatings, killings and a strict curfew, “while authorities confiscated thousands of mobile phones and banned refugees from buying SIM cards”, Mr. Voule said. This was allegedly after Rohingya refugees staged a demonstration commemorating the second anniversary of the Myanmar security forces’ campaign in Rakhine state, which former UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein likened to “textbook” ethnic cleansing. Bangladesh violenceĬiting a number of countries where the practice has been reported, the Special Rapporteur pointed out that residents of the vast Cox’s Bazar refugee camp complex in Bangladesh had endured a 355-day internet blackout beginning in September 2019. “Shutdowns can …range from large-scale complete disconnection of the internet and mobile networks to other network disruptions, including the blocking of particular services or applications, such as social media platforms and messaging apps and throttling or the slowing down internet traffic to impede connectivity,” the rights expert explained in his report, Ending Internet Shutdowns: A Path Forward. Voule said, adding that disruption to internet access has continued during the COVID-19 pandemic and impeded people’s access to essential health services. They targeted “particular social media and messaging applications and specific localities and communities”, Mr. Worryingly, security services have honed their techniques in recent years by “throttling” bandwidth in specific areas to prevent demonstrators communicating with each other before or during protests. ![]() “In Latin America, for example, shutdowns were recorded only in Nicaragua and Venezuela as of 2018, but since then, Colombia, Cuba and Ecuador have reportedly adopted shutdowns in connection to mass protests.” Throttling bandwidth
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