Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain Watch Organization reported that "as of 7pm tonight, Bahrain has shut down the internet in the village of Diraz every day for 365 days." This makes it one of the longest sustained internet shutdowns in the world.

Bahrain Watch said its research "revealed the presence of a device on Batelco's Internet backbone that disrupts certain Internet traffic to and from Diraz between 7PM and 1AM, while leaving other traffic undisrupted." It concluded that it is possible that the disruptions were a result of a Service Restriction Order (SRO) from the Bahrain Government.

Bill Marczak, Co-Founder and Director at Bahrain Watch said, "We live in an era where the internet is vital to modern living standards. Internet access is a right and not a privilege. In this case the shutdown has been used as part of a siege to prevent expression and as a form of collective punishment."

"The internet shutdown in Bahrain harms human rights and the local economy," said Deji Bryce Olukotun, Senior Global Advocacy Manager at Access Now, adding, "This sneaky new form of digital curfew may be disguised as a harmless disruption, but it has severe impacts upon freedom of expression and innovation."

"The government should immediately lift the shutdown and make the shutdown order public. The telcos have an obligation to respect human rights and should, at a minimum, be transparent about their actions and compensate the victims for their lost services," he went on to say.

The disruption was part of the systematic security siege of the village following protests that began on 20 June 2016 after the government revoked the nationality of prominent Shia cleric Sh. Isa Qassim. Protesters remained on the streets outside his home for almost one year until the Ministry of Interior (MoI) led an armed operation on 23 May 2017 to disperse the protests, Bahrain Watch added in its report.

Moreover, the organization said it has verified that the internet disruption has been carried out every day since 23 June 2016, marking one year of nightly internet disruptions.

It said it "carried out new research over recent weeks in response to fresh claims by residents on the ground of a more prolonged shutdown." Bahrain watch said it identified that there was a shift in the timing of the shutdown beginning on 23 May 2017, when the MoI led an armed operation against protesters in the village.

"Although coverage of the attack was initially disseminated in real time on social media and instant messaging applications during the start of the attack, the news quickly went silent with a team on the ground later reporting that they were unable to access the internet. During the week after the raid on Diraz, we verified that the disruption to mobile phone networks in the area occurred outside of the normal hours of 7PM and 1AM," Bahrain Watch clarified.

The population in Diraz has been estimated at approximately twenty thousand and Bahrain's mobile data penetration has been estimated at 115%. Bahrain Watch tracked the costs of the shutdown to residents since 23 June 2016. Despite the nightly shutdown, ISP's have forced residents to pay their internet subscription costs in full without compensation or provision of a remedy. Many subscribers who attempted to end their contracts were threatened with steep cancellation fees and paying the costs of their subscriptions in full, the organization added.

Based on the aforementioned, it estimated that the shutdown has costs residents over $845000 (approximately BD 319) in mobile and fixed-line subscriptions without access to the internet. This is a conservative estimate, and we expect the total cost of the shutdown on the wider economy to be much higher.

Bahrain Watch is a member of the #KeepItOn coalition fighting against internet shutdowns across the world. The #KeepitOn campaign has succeeded in pressuring the U.N. Human Rights Council to "unequivocally condemn" internet shutdowns.

Arabic version