A week after cutting down access to the internet for the second time in two months, the government of Senegal is arresting those selling Starlink throughout the country for “illegally providing internet access and irregular marketing.”
The government cites these offenses as “illegal provision of internet access and irregular marketing.”
On Monday, the government of Senegal took five people into custody for selling Starlink terminals without having the necessary permit or authorization to do so. The five individuals who were apprehended by the Department of Urban Security of the National Police face a possible maximum sentence of five years in jail and a fine of sixty million CFA ($100,000).
In addition, the authority that regulates telecommunications has issued a warning to any service providers marketing Starlink as well as any other company with actions comparable to those of Starlink, instructing them to immediately suspend all service throughout the nation.
A clean view of the sky is the only need for using the Starlink internet system that was built by SpaceX, an American private space exploration corporation founded by Elon Musk. Starlink is capable of delivering download speeds of up to 150 Mbps and only requires the user to have a view of the sky.
Read also: Senegal bans TikTok for “threatening national stability.”
Starlink usage in Senegal
Because of its terminals, Senegalese people would be able to access the internet through satellite, eliminating the requirement for a telecom provider in their country. Users of Starlink would still be able to connect to the internet even in the event that the government once again made the decision to shut down the internet. On the other hand, Starlink’s website indicates that the internet service provider is not now available in Senegal.
This arrest comes after a string of crackdowns by the Senegalese government, which has repeatedly limited its citizens’ access to the internet in an effort to exert more authority over its people. After demonstrations broke out in response to the arrest of a prominent opposition politician named Ousmane Sonko a month ago, the government took measures to limit access to the internet. Following Sonko’s re-arrest from the previous week, the government also temporarily blocked access to the internet.
According to Moussa Bocar Thiam, the country’s minister of communications, telecommunications, and digital economy, the ban on TikTok was lifted by the government last week, but it was reinstated the following day because the app is “favoured by people with bad intentions to spread hateful and subversive messages.” TikTok was banned because of this reason.
Internet shut down in Senegal
In July, the government of Senegal had cut down access to the internet, citing the necessity of doing so in order to maintain public order. Telephone operators were forced to comply with the shutdown, according to a statement that was signed by Moussa Bocar Thiam, the minister of Communications, telephones, and Digital Economy, and uploaded on Twitter.
The statement stated, “Due to the dissemination of hateful and subversive messages relayed on social media in a context of disturbance to public order, the internet’s mobile data is temporarily suspended during certain time slots from Monday, July 31, 2023.”.
A prominent member of the opposition, Ousmane Sonko, was taken into custody the Friday prior.
After Sonko’s detention, the government of Senegal disconnected the country’s internet connection at the beginning of June. The number of people using the internet in Senegal decreased by 37% compared to the day before, and for some carriers, it was almost at zero. As a result of the government shutdown in June, the United States reportedly lost an average of $300,000 each hour.