Internet disruption hits Belarus on election day

A report capturing network data by the Netblocks Internet observatory confirms a significant disruption of Internet access in Belarus on 9 August 2020, the day of the country’s presidential elections. The report noted further that the outage lasted throughout Sunday making it impossible for citizens to establish contact with the outside world. The network data shows that the nation-scale Internet disruption affected both fixed-line and cellular networks with major news and social media websites not accessible. The national cyber response team in Belarus (Belarus CERT) issued a statement suggesting that the restrictions could be a counter-measure by the government against incoming cyber-attacks against the state.