Mobile internet access in Senegal was suspended on Tuesday for the second time this month, the communications ministry said, after authorities banned a march against the delay to February's presidential election.
President Macky Sall's decision to push back the February 25 vote until December plunged Senegal into a crisis which has seen three dead amid clashes between protesters and security forces.
"Due to the dissemination on social networks of several subversive hate messages that have already provoked violent demonstrations... mobile data is suspended this Tuesday 13 February," the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Energy said in a statement.
Access to mobile data had already been temporarily restricted eight days ago when parliament backed Sall's decision to postpone the election. Access was restored again on Wednesday.
UN concern
The UN voiced concern on Tuesday at tensions in the country and urged swift probes into at least three deaths during protests.
"We are deeply concerned about the tense situation in Senegal," Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the United Nations rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
"Following reports of unnecessary and disproportionate use of force against protester s and restrictions on civic space, we call on the authorities to ensure that they uphold Senegal's long-held tradition of democracy and respect for human rights," Throssell said.
The move to cut mobile internet was a repeat of a move last June, where Senegal's government restricted access amid high tensions in the country.
Common response
The measure has become a common response to curb mobilisation and communication via social networks, strongly condemned by rights activists.
A protest march called on Tuesday against the delay of the presidential poll has been postponed after authorities banned it, organisers said.
Elymane Haby Kane, one of the organisers of the march, told AFP he had received an official letter from local authorities in the capital Dakar that the march was banned as it could seriously hamper traffic.
"We will postpone the march because we want to remain within the law," said Malick Diop, coordinator of a collective that called the protest.
"The march was banned. There's a problem with the route. So we will change this," he told AFP.
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