Internet Shutdown Begins in Nine Townships of Rakhine State

On This Day in Arakan History ၊ June 21, 2019

June 21, 2019, marks the day when Myanmar's Ministry of Transport and Communications ordered all telecommunications companies—Telenor, Ooredoo, Myanmar Post and Telecommunication, and MyTel—to suspend mobile internet services across nine townships in Rakhine and neighboring Chin states. The shutdown affected an estimated one million people in the townships like Ponnagyun, Kyautktaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya, Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Myebon and Paletwa Township in the Arakan military zone.

Authorities justified the measure under Section 77 of the 2013 Telecommunications Law, citing "disturbances of peace" and "use of internet activities to coordinate illegal activities" amid escalating clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA). For Rakhine civilians, this date represented being cut off from the outside world, unable to share information about flooding, military operations, or humanitarian needs.

The June 21 shutdown was historically significant as one of the longest and most extensive internet blackouts in Myanmar's history, lasting for years in some townships. UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee warned that "the entire region is in a blackout," expressing fear for civilians "cut off and without the necessary means to communicate with people inside and outside the area".

The shutdown came just days after credible reports of military helicopter attacks in Minbya Township on June 19 and AA fire on a navy ship in Sittwe on June 20 that killed several soldiers. Human rights organizations condemned the measure as "egregiously disproportionate," noting that even if intended to target rebels, it punished entire civilian populations. The UN investigators have documented how authorities previously used information blackouts to conceal human rights violations.

The June 21, 2019 shutdown established a pattern of systematic internet repression that would expand and deepen in subsequent years. While authorities partially restored services in five townships on September 1, 2019, the remaining four—Ponnagyun, Kyautktaw, Mrauk-U, and Minbya—remained cut off. Restrictions were reinstated in February 2020 as a "security requirement," and by the first anniversary, eight townships remained without internet.

A depiction of townships experiencing internet blackouts (source@engagemedia)

The shutdown severely hampered humanitarian operations, journalism, and civilians' ability to access information during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 111 press freedom groups calling for restoration. Most significantly, this 2019 shutdown foreshadowed the far broader internet blackouts that would follow the February 2021 military coup, when the junta repeatedly cut nationwide communications during crackdowns. The June 21, 2019 date thus stands as the moment when internet shutdowns became normalized as a tool of state control in Myanmar—a practice that would escalate dramatically in the years ahead, leaving millions of civilians permanently cut off from information and each other.