Bangladesh shuts down its internet during war crimes trial The government of Bangladesh shut down its internet for an hour earlier today in response to the announcement of the death penalty in a high-profile war crime trial. Between 1.15pm and 2.15pm local time, almost all online activity in the country, which shares India's eastern border, was systematically shut down. Of the 2,500 …
The situation in Bangladesh is dangerous at the moment. The mostly democratic and secular government is under major pressure from Islamists, many of whom collaborated with Pakistan in the genocide and civil war in 1971.
Secular bloggers are being systematically murdered, targets of an Islamist campaign to silence people speaking against the Islamists. The campaign is being run online, and there are supporters and funders (and targets!) in the UK. So in these circumstances it is possible to see the motivation to shut down the internet, even if it's counter-productive or unworkable.
Or more probably, very senior management agreed to do the job without understanding what was involved. The job ended up passed down the chain until it reached a relatively junior tech who was told out of the blue that he had to block these sites within a minute. He protested it wasn't possible, and the manager said that it had better be possible or he would face $SeverePunishment.
Said tech knows that he can't devise a national strategy for preventing access to these sites within 15 seconds, and so just uses the plan that does exist to axe everything. The big surprise is that management and politicians managed to make a decision to put everything back online within mere minutes.
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