Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps in Bangladesh face a communications blackout after the government ordered a ban on mobile phone services and sim cards.
The country’s telecommunications regulatory body cited security fears and illegal mobile use as it ordered operators to shut down services in the overcrowded camps in the south-eastern border district of Cox’s Bazar by next Sunday.
Local sim cards are already effectively forbidden to Rohingya refugees, since only Bangladeshis with national identity cards are allowed to use them. However, the camp’s black market in cards means their use is widespread.
Rights groups called on the Bangladeshi government not to further isolate the Rohingya, who fled to Bangladesh to escape ethnic cleansing in neighbouring Myanmar, by going ahead with the plan.
“Access to sim cards has been a vital service for the Rohingya for years, and they have utilised them extremely effectively to raise awareness of their plight to the world” said Kyaw Win, the executive director of Burma Human Rights Network.
Mobile internet services have already been disrupted in the camps, with a reduced signal at certain times of the day.
The order, from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, asks operators to submit reports to the government on the actions taken to shut down networks in the camps.
“Many refugees are using mobile phones in the camp” Zakir Hossain Khan, a spokesman for the commission, told the AFP news agency. “We’ve asked the operators to stop it.”
Until mobile phone services are halted, operators have been asked to suspend data and internet services between 5pm and 5am every day, Khan said.
In recent months, more than 40 Rohingya have been killed, amid concerns that some refugees are involved in smuggling illegal drugs to Myanmar. Last month, there were violent anti-refugee protests by locals after police blamed Rohingya refugees for the murder of Omar Faruk, a ruling party official.
Last weekend, police said a fourth Rohingya refugee was shot dead in the fallout over Faruk’s murder.
There has been speculation the communications crackdown is linked to non-violent rallies in the camp on 25 August, the second anniversary of the forced displacement of the Rohingya people from Myanmar after a brutal military campaign of violence against them. The official who allowed the gathering has now been transferred elsewhere, the Guardian understands.
The Bangladeshi government has become increasingly frustrated over its failed efforts to repatriate Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar.
A UN source, who did not want to be named, said the sim card crackdown would be “almost impossible” to implement.
“Mobile phones are two a penny here and there is a black market in sim cards,” said the source.
“It’s difficult to see how they are going to enforce it. A lot of refugees have still got Burmese sim cards and if they go into the hills, they can use them them there.”
