Pakistan: Sindh HC bars authorities from suspending internet services till polling date

Sindh [Pakistan], January 25 (ANI): Ahead of the general election in Pakistan on February 8, the Sindh High Court has directed the concerned authorities to ensure uninterrupted access to the internet for all citizens until the polling date, Geo News reported.

It reported, quoting the order, that the high court restrained the authorities from suspending internet services and directed the respondents to submit their responses on January 29, while hearing the petition filed in the SHC by advocate and human rights activist Jibran Nasir against the frequent suspension of internet services in the country.

As the political canvassing picks up pace ahead of next month’s elections, users have experienced internet outages multiple times in recent days.

The outage of social media platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube was the second in two weeks on January 20.

Following an hours-long disruption last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blamed a “technical fault” in its optic fibre network for the nationwide internet outage.

Taking to X, the PTA said, “The recent disruption in internet services was caused by a technical fault, which has been promptly rectified. Internet services have been fully restored nationwide.”

Geo news reported citing downdetector.pk, Google services as well as internet service provider PTCL also faced disruption.

According to a report, the relationship between the state and media freedoms deteriorated during the past two years due to growing instances of censorship, violence against journalists, and government disdain for critical media.

The report titled “Under Siege: Legislative, Judicial and Executive Actions Stifling Freedom of Expression and Right to Information” was published by the Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA) as part of its annual state of digital journalism series.

During the period under review, the PTA blocked as many as 1.1 million URLs including 187 mobile applications. Out of these blocked or removed URLs and content, around 200,000 were alleged to be related to the contempt of court, against the defence of Pakistan or glory of Islam, defamatory and sectarian/hate speech content, the report stated.

The report also uncovers a significant number of content removal requests from the Pakistani government to big tech platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). For example, Between January 2021 to June 2022, Meta restricted access in Pakistan to 12,001 items reported by the PTA for allegedly violating local laws, according to the report.