Authorities have increasingly cracked down on refugees’ rights to information and peaceful
assembly in Cox’s Bazar. In response to a peaceful demonstration in Kutupalong in 2019
demanding the right to safe return, Bangladesh authorities shut off all internet access for
an entire year, directed mobile phone carrier companies to stop selling SIM cards to
Rohingya, and confiscated thousands of SIM cards from refugees. 37
This broad restriction on communication was neither necessary nor proportionate, as
international human rights law requires. Instead, aid workers said the shutdown seriously
hampered their capacity to provide emergency health services, give timely and accurate
information about Covid-19, and rapidly coordinate essential measures to prevent the
spread of the novel coronavirus and other communicable diseases in the camps. 38 The
internet shutdowns affected refugees’ ability to get information and to communicate
outside the camps, including with relatives and friends still in Myanmar.
In 2019, the Bangladesh Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense recommended
building a security fence around the camps “so that no one can come out of the camps and
no one can enter inside the camps.” 39 Soon after, the authorities started fencing the
camps. However, instead of making the refugees safe, the fencing denied them freedom of
movement and placed them at serious risk. 40 Refugees expressed fears that the fencing
would restrict their ability to obtain essential services, make it impossible to flee in case of
emergency, and create significant barriers for contacting relatives in other camps.
37 “Bangladesh: Internet Blackout on Rohingya Refugees,” Human Rights Watch news release, September 13, 2019,
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/13/bangladesh-internet-blackout-rohingya-refugees; Muktadir Rashid, “2,000 SIMs
Seized in Rohingya Camps in Bangladesh,” New Age, December 7, 2019, http://www.newagebd.net/article/92885/12000sims-seized-in-rohingya-camps (accessed April 15, 2021); “No SIM Card for Rohingya,” The Daily Star, September 3, 2019,
https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/no-bangladeshi-sim-card-for-rohingyas-1794595 (accessed April 15, 2021);
“‘Genocide Day’: Thousands of Rohingya rally in Bangladesh camps,” Al Jazeera, August 25, 2019,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/8/25/genocide-day-thousands-of-rohingya-rally-in-bangladesh-camps (accessed
April 16, 2021).
38 “Bangladesh: Internet Ban Risks Rohingya Lives,” Human Rights Watch news release, March 26, 2020,
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/26/bangladesh-internet-ban-risks-rohingya-lives (accessed April 15, 2021).
39 “The armed forces want to build a barbed wire fence in the Rohingya camp, with the consent of the parliamentary
committee,” Dhaka Tribune, September 4, 2019, https://bit.ly/2QHHkcP (accessed April 28, 2021).
40 “Bangladesh: Halt Plans to Fence-In Rohingya Refugees,” Human Rights Watch news release, September 30, 2019,
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/30/bangladesh-halt-plans-fence-rohingya-refugees (accessed April 15, 2021).
“AN ISLAND JAIL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA”
20