The ban was lifted temporarily in September 2019, only to be reinstated again in February 2020. Restrictions were lifted for Maungdaw Township in May but the internet shutdown remained in place for the other eight townships until early August 2020. At that point, 2G services were restored. The interviews conducted for this white paper took place after this restoration. Everyone we spoke to stated that the 2G connectivity is drastically slow, and does not generally permit access to video calls, email, webpages with photos or videos, or social media sites. Under the definition we offered in the introduction, internet shutdowns include not only instances when the internet is “inaccessible” but also when it is “effectively unusable,” as many of our interviewees report. Thus, the shutdown, and the harms and human rights violations it precipitates, persist. The government has simultaneously pursued related actions to suppress access to information. Claiming to be combatting “disinformation,” it has prevented Rakhine based news outlets Narinjara and Development Media Group from reporting, charging editors and journalists for critical reporting under its the Unlawful Associations Act for “associating” with EAOs like AA. Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in prison under the Official Secrets Act simply for reporting on the Inn Din massacre in Rakhine State and served more than 500 days before being released, following international and domestic pressure, in May 2019.77 In February 2020, nine Rakhine students were charged under the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law for protesting and if convicted, could be sentenced up to 3 months in prison. All were sentenced to 1-month imprisonment while seven victims had been in the March and two others in the June of this 2020. Athan’s founder Maung Saungkha himself was convicted under the same law in September 2020 for putting up a banner on an overpass in Yangon which read, “Is the internet being shut down to hide war crimes in Rakhine state and killing people?” Maung Saungkha chose to pay the 30,000kyat (around US$20) fine instead serving 15-day prison sentence. According to Athan, as of early October 2020, 58 activists have been prosecuted for campaigning against the internet shutdown in Rakhine and Chin State. 14 have been convicted while 26 are still facing trial and 12 activists have arrest warrants issued against them and are in hiding. Internet Penetration in Bangladesh Generally in Bangladesh, internet connections are mobile and subject to periodic disruption or censorship by the state. As in Myanmar, many of 24.2 million internet users78 in Bangladesh rely on mobile connections rather than fixed-line or broadband internet connections. Indeed, the country‘s fixed-line penetration rate is the lowest in South Asia, although gains are expected in the coming years.79 The 2019 Freedom on the Net report from Freedom House found Bangladesh, 77 “Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo: Reuters journalists freed in Myanmar,” BBC, May 7, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48182712. 78 “Freedom on The Net 2019,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/201911/11042019_Report_FH_FOTN_2019_final_Public_Download.pdf, 29. 79 Sebastien De Rosbo, ”Bangladesh - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses,” BuddeComm, last updated April 18, 2020, https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Bangladesh-TelecomsMobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses. 19