Following violent protests in which “hateful and subversive” remarks were posted online, Senegal’s government declared on Sunday that mobile internet access will be suspended in some areas.
For three days, the West African country has been rocked by violent protests that have cost at least 16 lives.
Last week, the government limited access to particular chat platforms, but many users were able to circumvent the ban by utilizing virtual private networks, which hide the user’s location. The outage started on Sunday and has now extended to encompass all data on mobile internet devices in certain regions and at specific times, according to the statement.
There was no indication of which sites or times were impacted, but individuals all across Dakar reported being shut off from the internet on Sunday afternoon, just as protests were ramping up.
“Because of the spread of hateful and subversive messages. mobile Internet is temporarily suspended at certain hours of the day,” according to the warning.
On Thursday, the popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was considering running for president in February, was sentenced to two years in jail, sparking the uproar.
Protesters have also been upset by President Macky Sall’s refusal to rule out a third run for office. The President of Senegal is limited to two terms.
In an attempt to stifle protests, governments in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya cut down internet connection to their populations as early as the Arab Spring in 2011. Other unstable countries, such as Gabon, Gambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have since followed suit.
Proponents of free speech are outraged by the legislation. As a consequence, economies may suffer more.
During the first round of blackouts in Senegal on Friday, Amnesty International published a statement stating, “These restrictions constitute arbitrary measures contrary to international law and cannot be justified by security imperatives.”
