We begin the paper with overviews of the human rights situation in Myanmar and Bangladesh
which lays the groundwork for both the rationale behind the internet shutdowns as well as their
impacts. This section highlights the Tatmadaw’s 2017 “clearance operations” that forced more
than 750,000 Rohingyas refugees to flee to Bangladesh, the ongoing armed conflict in Rakhine
and Chin State in Myanmar and the situation in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. We
then move to examine the immediate causes of the targeted internet shutdowns in Myanmar and
Bangladesh, which both began in 2019. Next, we demonstrate that violations of digital rights are
violations of human rights, and explain why internet shutdowns impede the rights of IDPs and
refugees. In Section 4, the heart of the white paper, we showcase the voices of our interviewees,
and draw out key themes from the interviews. Our findings reveal that there are commonalities in
the impacts of the shutdowns in both countries, such as in the areas of public health information
around COVID-19, education, and access to reliable news in misinformation-rich environments,
as well as differences in areas like work, access to healthcare, and physical security. The paper
concludes with key recommendations to the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh.