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Cameroon’s English-speaking regions sank into a complete internet blackout on January 17, an outage that is still ongoing. The shutdown came on the heels of organized ‘ghost town’ strikes and street protests towards the end of 2016. The West African nation’s anglophone provinces had long felt marginalized by poor infrastructure and the primarily French-speaking government’s attempts to require the use of French in courts and schools.Right before the shutdown, mobile users received warning texts from the country’s Telecommunications Ministry, which stated publishing or sharing unverified news on social media could be punished with up to two years of jail time. “The government has been waging a war against social media, precisely because of its power to show how protesters are being treated and counter official government propaganda,” said Owono. Once the shutdown was in effect, SMS warnings upped the stakes to 20 years in prison.Local businesses and access to education are lagging during the shutdown. Sophie Ngassa, a civil engineer and STEM advocate in Bamenda, an English-speaking city in northwestern Cameroon, says the unrest led to school closures which have kept her four children home for several months. Her online education has also taken a hit. “I have to travel 7.5km out of the city to go to Bafoussam [in a French-speaking region] so I can attend my virtual classroom.”National human rights groups have reported arbitrary arrests since the shutdown started, often targeting protesters. David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, condemned the shutdown on February 10 for violating international law and denying Cameroonians “access to essential services and basic resources.” International advocacy groups issued an open letter to the central government to end the shutdown.