Bangladesh faces ‘near-total’ internet blackout during student demonstrations

According to AFP, Bangladesh is currently facing a total internet blackout as the government tries to suppress extensive student demonstrations that have led to the deaths of at least 32 individuals. The protests are primarily focused on the nation’s quota system, which mandates that one-third of government positions be set aside for descendants of veterans who fought for Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.

On Thursday, several thousand protesters in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka had attacked state broadcaster BTV, breaking windows and furniture, setting fire to offices and detaining “several” people inside, according to a post on BTV’s official Facebook page. Al Jazeera reported that 17 people were killed in clashes with police on Thursday. To control the situation, Bangladeshi authorities shut down internet and phone connections throughout the country, a common practice in South Asia to prevent the spread of rumors and misinformation and to exercise state surveillance. NetBlocks, a global internet monitor that works on digital rights, analyzed real-time internet data that showed Bangladesh was in the midst of a “near-total national internet shutdown”.

Shutting down the internet is a popular way to contain conflicts around the world. According to Internet watchdog Access Now, the number of outages around the world continues to increase every year. In 2023, 39 countries together shut down the internet more than 160 times for various reasons, such as protests, exams and elections.

Bangladesh has often blacked out the internet to crack down on political opposition and activists. At the end of 2023, CIVICUS Monitor, a research tool that provides data on the state of civil society and freedoms in nearly 200 countries, downgraded Bangladesh’s civil state to “closed”, its lowest possible rating since the country ordered six internet shutdowns the previous year. year. This made Bangladesh the fifth largest perpetrator of internet outages in 2022, Access Now said.

The country’s telecoms regulator had promised to keep the internet up during Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections in early 2024, but the election season is now over. Despite the promise, Bangladesh blocked access to news sites during its elections.