the goan I network
PANAJI
Former vice president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union and civil rights activist Shehla Rashid on Sunday stated that an internet shutdown is an economic blockade with sanctions effectively being used to bully people into political submission. “It is quite literally ‘silencing’ and ‘gagging’ entire communities and populations,”
She was speaking at a panel discussion on “The anatomy of internet shutdowns” at a workshop organised on Sunday at Dona Paula by NULLCON. The dedicated workshop titled “Digital Security and Privacy for Journalists, Activists and Lawyers” was aimed at spreading awareness about secure communication and storage of confidential dat and sources and prevention of surveillance and mobile tracking for individuals.
Speaking from her own experience during the internet shutdown in Kashmir since August 2019, Rashid said, “Internet shutdowns paralyse ordinary human life. When the recent internet shutdown in Kashmir took place in August 2019, which was more of a communications shut down as no means of communication, including the postal services, were operational.”
She recounted how people could not call emergency services, students missed exams and job interviews and the strict curfew brought life to a standstill in the northern state. Parents lost touch with their children studying abroad and in different parts of the country, students ran out of money and had no way of contacting their parents.
She explained how disruption of medical services affected the old and the needy, how startups closed down and entrepreneurs “ the job creators “ are now looking for jobs. “These are only representative anecdotes that I know first-hand. Multiply these by millions and I wouldn’t even be exaggerating. That is the scale of misery caused to us by the communication shut down.Obviously, the rest of India won’t hear about it because the affected people can’t communicate,” she said.
Another prominent panelist, Raman Jit Singh Chima, Senior International Counsel and Asia Pacific Policy Director at Access Now Organisation, informed that the latest reports show that India was the worst offender of complete internet shutdowns in 2019. Out of the total 213 documented shutdowns recorded officially across the world, 121 were implemented in India. Venezuela was second with 12 shutdowns.
“In India, while Jammu and Kashmir topped the list of states with highest number of internet shutdowns, Rajasthan was second. We also saw unprecedented internet shutdowns in the North Eastern states and in Delhi in the backdrop of the anti-CAA protests,” he stated, adding that governments like Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Indonesia have cut off the internet completely in a targeted manner thereby posing a grave threat to human rights.
