Autor: global-affair

In response to the Uganda Communication Commission’s (UCC) decision to indefinitely suspend internet services and certain mobile phone services ahead of tomorrow’s high stakes general election, Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s East and Southern Africa Regional Director said: 

“This indefinite internet shutdown is a brazen attack on the right to freedom of expression which includes access to information. It is especially alarming coming as it does just before a crucial election already marred by massive repression and an unprecedented crackdown on opposition parties and dissenting voices. 

“Blanket shutdowns disrupt people’s mobility, livelihoods and their ability to access vital information. They are inherently disproportionate under international human rights law and must never be imposed.   

“Cutting off internet access under the pretext of preventing misinformation or preserving national security violates human rights at a critical moment in Uganda. It creates an information vacuum and a digital darkness that may provide cover for the perpetration of serious human rights violations. The fact that no end date for the internet shutdown has been given is also ominous. 

Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s East and Southern Africa Regional Director

“Amnesty International calls on Ugandan authorities to immediately lift all restrictions on access to the internet and affected mobile phone services.” 

Background 

On Tuesday, the UCC announced an internet shutdown which started at 6pm local time, which it said will remain in effect until further notice. On Wednesday internet monitoring group NetBlocks reported a widespread shutdown. 

The order requires network operators and internet service providers to suspend internet services, stop selling and registering new sim or phone cards, and stop outbound data roaming services. The UCC said the measures are necessary to mitigate the spread of misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud, and to protect national security. 

Ugandan authorities routinely tighten internet access during elections, depriving voters of crucial electoral information. During the last election in 2021, dozens of people were killed amid a week-long internet blackout. 

The internet shutdown comes shortly after the Uganda NGO Bureau suspended permits for at least six non-governmental organizations and froze their bank accounts, limiting their freedom of association which is guaranteed under the Ugandan Constitution and international human rights law.  

Earlier this month, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights expressed concern over pre-election information restrictions in Uganda and widespread acts of harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of journalists. 

The post Uganda: Authorities must urgently lift internet restrictions ahead of crucial election day appeared first on Amnesty International.

By Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher, and Aung Naing Soe, Burmese journalist and filmmaker

One morning last November, Bee Kyal’s phone pinged with a message about a fighter jet taking off from a military base in central Myanmar’s rural Sagaing region. Reacting quickly, the resistance fighter picked up a walkie-talkie and shouted into it, telling civilians to “stay alert!”

Bee Kyal’s words traveled through a network connected to speakers in a nearby village without internet. There was implicit urgency: The plane that was spotted was identified as a Russian-made Yak-130, which can reach its target in minutes.

More than 7,000 civilians have been killed since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, many of them in the heartland of Sagaing, where flat plains stretch for miles. In this realm of contested territories, conflict among the military and armed resistance groups continues unabated. The internet is a key part of the fight. Myanmar’s military has restricted internet access in conflict areas, with an estimated 131 townships either fully or partially blocked.

Such cuts to internet access are considered disproportionate under international human rights law, violating rights to freedom of expression and information. Some communities in Myanmar have experienced them for years. Many people now rely almost entirely on Starlink, the satellite internet provider owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as a workaround. Schools, humanitarian groups, hospitals, media, human rights researchers, and resistance fighters have few other options.

Read the full article in Foreign Policy

The post In Myanmar, civilians bear consequences of Starlink cuts appeared first on Amnesty International.