Over the past year, billions of people all over the world have relied heavily on internet connectivity to keep in touch with family and friends, learn online, work from home and get vital information about the coronavirus pandemic. Yet over the course of 2020, 29 countries intentionally shut down or slowed their internet communications at least 155 times, according to a new report published by Access Now, a non-profit digital rights group. “We are extremely concerned how government authorities are using internet shutdowns as a systemised tool to repress democratic expression, even in the middle of a global pandemic,” Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international counsel and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now said.