♪ >> this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. [people yelling] antiabortion activists celebrating after the supreme court overturned the roe v. wade ruling which made abortion a constitutional right almost 50 years ago. there was massive anger and disappointment among supporters of abortion rights after the dishes and was announced. u.s. president joe biden said it was a sad day for the country.

>> this decision is the combination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law. it is a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the supreme court, in my view. the court has done what it has never done before -- expressly take away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many americans and has already been recognized. >> republican members of congress hailed ruling as a victory. >> the people have won a victory. the right to life has been vindicated. the voiceless will finally have a voice. this great nation can now live up to its core principle that all are created equal, not born equal, created equal. >> at least five people have been killed while storming the border while storming the border

of a spanish enclave in morocco. spain said 130 migrants succeeded in breaching the border after 2000 made the attempt. dozens including police officers were injured. a u.n. finding suggests israeli security forces fired the shot that killed an al jazeera journalist. the human rights office says it did not come from indiscriminate firing by palestinians as claimed by israeli authorities. the governor of ukraine's luhansk recent says his forces will have to leave severo donetsk. russian forces have now taken over most of the city. in brazil, demonstrations have been taking place across the country for the last 12 days. those other headlines. the news continues on al jazeera after inside story. thanks for watching.

♪ >> hands off the internet, the human human rights office urging countries not to impose communication blackouts, saying the action has a negative effect on people. will governments listen? this is "inside story." ♪ >> welcome to the program.

the internet and other communications tools have become crucial to our everyday lives. but what happens if governments shut them down or impose severe restrictions? the u.n. human rights office says those actions have severe consequences and the impact has been vastly underestimated. the report released thursday says state-imposed communications shutdowns have deprived millions of people from reaching out to loved ones, earning a living or participating in political debate, and that governments have increasingly restricted information to stifle political dissent, using the pretext of security. internet shutdowns carry major economic costs for all sectors, according to the report. let's take a closer look at the report, which says internet shutdowns are powerful markers of sharply deteriorating human

rights conditions in the places they are imposed. it contributes to further insecurity and violence as abuses go unreported. and when authorities often use public safety for combating disinformation as their reason for restricting internet access, the report says it often achieves the opposite result. a report by digital rights organization access now documented 182 shutdowns in 34 countries last year. india was responsible for 106 of those, with 80% reported in cashmere -- kashmir. another country shut down the internet 15 times in response to a coup and in eritrea, and

internet black down has made it difficult to report. in 2020, this country limited social media access to stop antigovernment protesters from coordinating. ♪ let's bring in our guests. in geneva, peggy, director of engagement at the u.n. human rights office, which produced the report. in washington, stephen, senior director for eurasia of the international republican institute. ended london, barber road, senior director for policy at article 19, an organization that campaigns for global freedom of expression. -- and in london, barbara, senior director for policy at

article 19, an organization that campaigns for global freedom of expression. why should we be concerned? >> absolutely. we say long-standing pattern. it is evolving. we see blanket shutdowns but also, all sorts of ways to shut down, reducing the speed, taking you from 5g to 2g, or downgrading or throttling. there is a trend. at we need to worry about it because it has enormous impact. it is not just the shutting off of speech and protests, which is sometimes the purpose, it has in a norma's -- has an enormous impact on people's ability to access health care or their jobs. it should concern everyone. >> stephen, this is something the report says has been vastly underestimated. is it because we tend to consider the internet a normal part of our daily lives and

therefore, we don't look into details in those incidents in other parts of the world, but they portray a somber aspect of political reality? >> that is true. i agree with becky, this goes far beyond tests and speech. i would like to put this in context. the question we have to ask is, where do people rely -- what do people rely on for their main sources of news? 10, 15 years ago, and the former soviet space, it was primarily dominated by state television and a mix of private television. but that changed. polling data indicates that in ukraine, georgia and moldova, internet has crept up and surpassed tv as the main news source for people in those countries. unfortunately, in russia and

belarus, that has not been the case. in russia, data indicates that over 50% of russian citizens rely primarily on tv for political news. the number rises to 74% when you look at people 55 and older. this is a tremendous problem, as the access to news and information through the internet and places like russia and belarus, where it has been curtailed and almost completely eliminated in some cases. >> barbara, this is become quite a vital part of our lives where we use it to earn a living, listening to the news, talking with loved ones, taking part in a political debate, voicing concerns for the future. governments are using that to stifle dissent. what should be done to stop this

from happening again and again? >> thank you. i want to add that this is not just stifling dissent, it is stifling the ability for people to go about their daily lives because people increasingly rely on the internet to access information about food, what is necessary for their livelihood, running a business, if you are promoting your small enterprise, or big enterprise online, if you're trying to find information for covid during the pandemic. it is having an impact on all aspects of life which are now interconnected, through technology and the internet. and the shutdowns in various forms. what has to be done? the solutions rely on a number of levels. and the report of the high commissioner we are discussing outlines that.

one of the layers is on the side of the states, which are imposing those shutdowns. to their eyes, blanket shutdowns are like a black out and are never a proportionate restriction on human rights. this is presented as a necessary tool for national security and obligate order -- and public order that happens during some sort of emergency. but when you disconnect the whole country, from the internet, that is never justified. there can never be a situation where you disconnect a whole region oral country from the internet. so -- region or a whole country from the internet. so, it should be a limited area,

extremely, depending on the circumstances. but the blanket shutdowns, no. then, there is something about the companies and how they comply with shutdown orders and what they can do to challenge them. and then there is the international community and what we are doing here to point out the danger of those shutdowns and the impact on human rights, the economy and the lives of people. >> when you look at the report, india features as a leader in restricting access to the internet, particularly in kashmi r. the conflict persists. the u.n. has been criticizing india for excessive use of violence. are we likely to see that trend? >> the reality is, we have

long-term shutdowns like what has been experienced in kashmir. myanmar is another good example, ethiopia, we have ongoing concerns there. but one of the big problems here is, yes, we have a lot of data of what happened in india, but we also know that it is a global phenomenon. and also some things are happening that we don't have real transparency on. one of the key things called for in the report is that, if the government is going to impose a shutdown, their minimum obligation is that they should tell us they are doing it, why they are doing it and that way, we can at least have transparency and accountability around us. we also propose pulling together a collaborative mechanism that might help us better monitor this phenomenon. that would bring us back to bar bara's point where, if we monitor them, we are but to be

in a better position to hold government accountable when they do these actions, and it will be more in the public domain. >> monitoring the governments who are imposing the blackouts is going to be difficult and delicate task. they use all sorts of techniques. they tell you they have poor infrastructure, but they do it on purpose so that people cannot download material that the government looks at as sensitive. they said we don't have enough resources -- say we don't have enough resources to do that, but we know the ultimate motive is to deny people access to those platforms. how do you see this moving forward to tackle this issue? >> i will cite two distinct examples of the challenges in terms of internet shutdowns. and again, i point to russia and belarus, where the opposition leadership has basically been forced to leave the country. the navalny organization is now

operating from lithuania. and the belarus opposition. these movements have become offshore movements, they no longer have the capability to interact in person with voters and constituents, which means the internet is the only means to communicate with people inside these two countries. i will cite a specific example in russia in the dumas elections. a system called smart voting is basically a get out the vote program, identifying voters, urging them to vote for any candidate, any party expect -- any party except the party of vladimir putin. it was successful in local elections. the authorities knew that. so, with the recent dumas

elections, the smart voting website was shut down and all the apps that carried smart voting in russia were shut to varying degrees because the authorities knew this was effective. they feared losing seats in the russian dumas. but in addition to these internet shutdowns, this is the threat we are talking about, other digital tactics used by authoritarian regimes. and in the dumas elections, the russian government introduced electronic voting. when the results were tallied from regular voting, the 15 constituencies in moscow, the smart voting candidate was leading. when the electronic votes were tallied, guess what? the party in power won every constituency. so, these tactics go beyond shutting down the internet. this goes to digital

applications, digital strategies which denied people basic fundamental rights to campaign and cast their votes for their choice of candidate or political party. that is the challenge today. sa>> -- >> how should we draw the line between the concerns of international activists looking for a world without restrictions, and governments who we have to do it for the reason that we are facing huge security concerns? blackouts and restrictions come sometimes when we are launching a major operation, targeting terrorist groups. otherwise, it is not going to work. how can we define the line between those two concerns? >> we need to be mindful of the phenomenon we are describing. because we are using shutdowns to affect various types of measures which states are imposing. then most known one is the

blackout when they disconnect everything online. but there are other forms. sometimes, technical throttling of the networks, which is not so obvious because users maybe don't know what is happening. it is very technical. maybe it is a shortage of electricity. there is also a blocking of the website or blocking certain apps, as was described in the case of russia. these are the various tools which fall into this definition of "shutdowns" and we need measures to prevent their use. so, what i said about blackouts and shutdowns, governments often use them, and the usually say there is an emergency, a terrorist attack, something really serious where we need to disconnect the whole country from it. this is another excuse, which

isn't even effective. because even if they disconnect the area from the internet totally, you are not only trying to get a terrorist, these things are using -- are used on measures like exams. when you do this, you are also preventing emergency services reaching the people who might need help. you are also disconnecting and eliminating the possibility of real-life information and what is happening, like the issue of a shooting in schools. it is really important and people can report to police or connect what is happening. for proportion, this never works for a whole country, this

disconnect. and it also deletes so much useful and necessary information what you need in a crisis situation to respond to the facts. that is number one. we might talk about it in very limited situations where it might be really necessary. i cannot think of that sort of situation, but under the rule of law and the legal system, this can't just be decided by some public official or we don't know whom without due process and without considering all these aspects. the more jordi -- the majority of concerns we are hearing, the reasons never stand when you look at them in greater detail. >> let's talk about ways for denying people to access to the internet. when it comes to forms of

authoritarianism, we have developed tools, we can take the oppressors to the when human rights council or u.n. -- the u.n. human rights council or the u.n. security council. people have been deploying wild ideas such as satellites, balloons, and it is not easy. it is costly. and not all the world will be able to have access to those. what could be coming from your perspective, the most practical way to tackle this problem? >> there definitely are easier and more practical ways to tackle this. i want to pick up on what barba ra was saying. i documentation shows that in the vast majority of cases, governments use national security or public order when they do the bigger, blanket shutdowns.

but i shutting down the internet, they have the impact that barbara talked about. but be clear, when the internet is shut down, all the monitoring, the reporting come of the checks on government power are limited. you create an environment in which abuse and impunity can flourish. in fact, rather than decreasing threats to national security and public order, once the internet is shut down, you have created an environment that makes abuses much more likely. that is why we are so concerned. but to your question about what can be done, there are a number of clear steps. first, we need an international standard where states feel obliged to report on what they are doing in a transparent way. that alone will hold governments accountable and will make it much less likely they are able to do this on an ongoing basis. secondly, appoint we make in the report is that there is tons of effort going one right now to

close the digital divide, to bring conductivity to parts of the world that don't have. about 50% of the world's people don't have internet access. in those conversations about conductivity, we are not talking about shutdowns. in fact, a number of the governments receiving support to build up conductivity in their own countries are also resorting to shutdowns. so, we need to link those things, we need to integrate the shutdown conversation into work that is being done to close the digital divide. so, if you give support to increase internet access within your country, it should come with some requirements that you don't engage in this kind of shutdown behavior and don't limit the very internet access you have been helped to create. >> when you talk to people all

over the world about access to the internet, they will tell you this is not really a top priority. a top right already for us would be access to food and water. but if we get to the point where it becomes almost as existential as access to food and water, could that be the tipping point that would bring the international community to say, the internet is paramount. it is sacred. it is part of our daily lives. you deny us access, you will be punished. >> you make the excellent point that the best information over the internet is critical in this day and age and is equated with important things such as food and water. i agree completely. what do we do? multilateral efforts are important to place internet access at the top of the agenda.

but i would argue, with democracies of the world, once the standards that peggy described are set forth, that in all bilateral negotiations, that access to the internet be at the top of the list in terms of bilateral relations. let's make it a priority for the u.s. and western allies and others to prioritize this issue in all bilateral discussions with autocratic regimes and others that are considering shutting down or limiting the internet. >> for decades, when the biggest problems we faced was, when talking about human rights violations, impunity. do you think we need to enforce a mechanism like an international tribunal to bring those who commit those

atrocities digitally to justice, to stop this from recurring? >> we need to have accountability for states that are resorting to those measures at the state level or regional level. i don't think we need a special tribunal for those because the human rights system already allows for these violations to be challenged. within the current system come internationally and domestically, you can challenge those decisions, those shutdowns. this is something we haven't covered and is important to mention, because the shutdown is always imposed by the state on the internet service provider. and in the majority the cases,

they comply with the shutdown. our place is to ask them to challenge these orders by going into court or engaging with the states do not comply or comply in a way which is not necessary, so challenging those internet access orders. there are about 40 states. we have international mechanisms where these issues can be brought to attention. under international human rights, there are already mechanisms and it is very important for the human rights community to continue to hold violators to account and use the systems at our disposal to challenge them. >> i wish we had more time, but

we will definitely revisit this issue of denying people access to the internet. to my guests, i really appreciate your insights. thank you. and thank you for watching. you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website, aljazeera.com or visit facebook and you can also join the conversation on twitter, our handle is @ajinsidestory. for the team in dolonc, goodbye for now. --r■ç■ç■ç■q■q■q■q■q■q■q■q■q■q■q■

♪♪♪ greta thunberg: you have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. how dare you. all: what do we want? climate justice. all: when do we want it? now. barbara miller: when a swedish teenager began skipping school last august to call for tough action on climate change, no one could have imagined it would lead to this. [all shouting] if we don't get it, shut it down. greta: people are suffering. people are dying.