Item Summary

"Kashmir’s Internet Siege provides an overview of the harms, costs and consequences of the digital siege in Jammu & Kashmir, from August 2019 to the publication of this report in August 2020. We examine the shutdown and network disruptions through a broad-based and multi-dimensional human rights framework that sees internet access as vital in the contemporary world."

"In this report we contextualise the digital siege in light of long standing, widespread and systematic patterns of rights violations in Kashmir. Digital sieges are a technique of political repression in Kashmir, and a severe impediment to the enjoyment of internationally and constitutionally guaranteed civil, political and socio-economic rights. They curtail circulation of news and information, restrict social and emergency communications, and silence and criminalise all forms of political interactions and mobilisations as “militancy related” “terrorist activity” and threats to “national security”

"This report moves beyond the most often cited direct impact of network disruptions on political and economic freedoms of speech and association, business and trade. We include studies of the effect on the rights to health, education, and livelihood and examine the effects of network disruptions on access to justice and individual and collective security. We also consider the damage done to social and cultural life, which is the basis of the economy and community. In doing so we hope Kashmir’s Internet Siege provides a more integrated, cross-sectoral, and wide ranging view of the devastating and all-encompassing impact of the government’s denial of communications and access to the internet (and the throttling of internet speeds once access is restored). Individual chapters that contextualise the situation in Kashmir in the light of particular human rights standards, and a detailed timeline, are interwoven with brief conversations that highlight the intersecting nature of the discrimination and suffering caused. The report distills the voices and experiences of the siege from a multiplicity of media accounts and published sources, as an all India Covid 19 lockdown placed severe constraints on our ability to undertake field visits, carry out primary research, and conduct face-to-face interviews."