J-K records highest internet shutdowns in world in 2022

India, Russia and Iran stood out among other countries for their ‘high-profile internet censorship events’ in 2022 Surfshark, a VPN service provider

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: The basic human right of access to the internet, according to the United Nations, is not so easily accessible to those residing in the nation’s Jammu and Kashmir. The union territory has recorded 24 incidents of disruption, the highest for a single region anywhere in the world in the last year, according Surfshark, a virtual private network provider.

“Surfshark’s internet censorship yearly recap shows that 4.2 billion people were affected by internet censorship in 2022, while India and J&K were among the hardest hit,” Surfshark has said. The firm has noted instances of partial and entire internet and social media shutdown in 196 countries and territories.

The internet outages in Jammu and Kashmir reached its peak during 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the state’s constitutional autonomy and amended its status from a state of India to a union territory which would be governed by New Delhi.

Jammu and Kashmir also witnessed the world’s longest internet shutdown taking place within a democratic nation, between August 2019 and January 2020. Further, the authorities took over 18 months to restore 4G services in the region. In the year 2022, Jammu and Kashmir alone constituted over 70 percent of the internet outages in India.

The rest of the instances of internet shutdown came from the time when the nationwide protests broke out when the government’s new military recruitment scheme was initiated. Other parts of the country witnessed up to 10 cases, Surfshark noted in its report.

There were 112 cases across 36 countries, globally. Surfshark noted that India, Russia and Iran stood out among other countries for their “highprofile internet censorship events” in 2022. In Jammu and Kashmir, all cases for internet restrictions were related to political turmoil, the Netherlands-based company said.

“More than half of the world’s population was affected by internet censorship last year... These can be devastating and extremely dangerous, especially during wartime, protests, or violent government repression. Internet restrictions can make it difficult or even impossible to mobilise people for the defence of democracy, contact loved ones, access news sites, and spread information to the outside world on what’s happening,” said a Surfshark spokesperson.