More than a million people in Myanmar’s conflict-ridden Rakhine state have been plunged into an information blackout three days after authorities ordered telecommunications companies to stop providing internet services to the area.
Rights groups have condemned the move as threat to civilians’ safety.
The shutdown came with no warning on 21 June, one day after Myanmar’s ministry of transport and communications ordered four companies to temporarily suspend mobile internet services to nine townships in northern Rakhine state and southern Chin state.
The military has been clashing throughout the year in the region with Arakan Army (AA) insurgents, who want political autonomy for Rakhine Buddhists.
The clashes have displaced 30,000 civilians in the last six months, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The area also saw the systematic expulsion of 730,000 Rohingya Muslims starting in 2017, which UN investigators say the military perpetrated with genocidal intent.
The AA are a more formidable force than the fighters claiming to represent the Rohingya and have inflicted historically higher death tolls on the military.
The ministry’s directive allows it to suspend telecommunications services “when an emergency situation arises”. Soe Thein, ministry’s permanent secretary, told local media on Monday that “internet service will resume when the peace and stability are restored to the region”.
Only one of the four telecommunications operators has publicly acknowledged the internet blackout. Telenor said in a statement on Friday that it “has been asking [the ministry] for further clarification on the rationale for the shutdown and emphasised that freedom of expression through access to telecoms services should be maintained for humanitarian purposes, especially during times of conflict.”
The statement pointed out that voice and SMS services have not been affected by the shutdown.
But rights groups have criticised the shutdown as threat to civilians who are trapped in the conflict zone, which has long been closed-off to journalists and foreign humanitarian organisations. “Civilians living in conflict need to access information, and this information can often be lifesaving. People trapped in Rakhine state won’t be able to access information, express themselves or reach their loved ones,” said Berhan Taye, a campaigner for the digital rights group Access Now.
“This shutdown is expected to disrupt humanitarian efforts directed toward this conflict. Moreover, because of these shutdowns, it would be difficult to expose the real effect of the conflict on civilians and the actions of the warring parties,” she told the Guardian.
These fears are already playing out on the ground for Zaw Zaw Htun, secretary of the Rakhine Ethnic Congress, which documents civilian casualties and provides humanitarian relief services.
“We usually collect and verify news about wars and clashes using photos and videos posted on the internet, especially on Facebook and Messenger. We can’t do that anymore,” he told The Guardian.
“The [civilian] government is supporting the actions of the military. Since they are a democratic government, they should think about the rights of the people,” Zaw Zaw Htun said.
On Monday, 21 Myanmar-based civil and digital rights organisations released a statement demanding an end to the shutdown and a revision of the Telecommunications Law in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions “identifying uninterrupted internet access as a fundamental enabler for the enjoyment of human rights”.
To some observers, the internet blackout portends a spike in the scale of the bloodshed in Myanmar’s war against the AA, in which recent military atrocities include the killing of six Rakhine state villagers in captivity.
“This is just like the Saffron Revolution in 2007,” said Myanmar Press Council member Zayar Hlaing, referring to democratic uprisings that were brutally crushed by the previously ruling military junta. “They shut down connections and killed the monks as foreign reporters were struggling to get information out of the country.”
