Md. Rakibul Ahsan was finishing a logo he had designed for a foreign client as the deadline fast approached. Just before he could hit send, Bangladesh's internet was shut down, stranding him and the rest of the country offline.
Student-led protests against quotas for highly sought-after government jobs led to violent clashes that killed at least 147 people in Bangladesh this month.
The government responded with a countrywide curfew, sending military troops to patrol empty roads, and a comprehensive internet outage on July 18 - a tactic it has employed previously at refugee camps and ahead of elections.
The Supreme Court on Sunday reversed a lower court decision that had reinstated the quotas, which had sparked the protests in a country facing a jobs crisis. The top court ruled that most positions should instead be filled based on merit in a partial victory for the student protesters.
Broadband connectivity was partially restored on Wednesday. Banks and the corporate sector came online first, with others reconnecting more gradually.
For graphic designer Ahsan, the shutdown cost him his client. Independent professionals who find work at freelancing platforms are now worried they could be downranked, while those who provide regular services such as online marketing might lose longstanding relationships after the week-long outage, he said.
"It just does not feel great to fail at the last minute to respond to a client who trusts me," said Ahsan, a fine arts graduate who is one of Bangladesh's 650,000 freelancers, many of whom work in IT, a sector that contributes $1 billion to the country's economy.
Amid the protests, government officials also took aim at social media sites such as Facebook, blaming them for enabling the turmoil. The sites are still offline in Bangladesh.
Zunaid Ahmed Palak, a technology minister, told reporters that repairs were underway to restore telecoms services after communications infrastructure was vandalised during the violence.
Bangladesh's internet shutdown isolates citizens, disrupts business
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