Pakistan faced nationwide Internet and social media disruptions ahead of a “virtual rally” organized on Saturday by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party.
This happened weeks before the upcoming national elections, raising concerns about the impact on digital communication and information flow.
The outage of Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube is the second in two weeks coinciding with online campaign events organized by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
Elections scheduled for February 8 have been marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging, with analysts saying the military establishment — Pakistan’s political kingmakers — are squeezing Khan and PTI out of the race.
The event was due to broadcast PTI speeches by livestream but internet disruptions began in the early evening, before it began.
“We can confirm the nation-scale restriction of social media platforms across Pakistan,” said Alp Toker, Director of the Netblocks watchdog organisation monitoring cybersecurity and internet governance.
He told AFP the outage was “remarkably systematic” and “consistent with previous restrictions imposed during PTI events”.
Khan and many prominent PTI candidates have been barred from standing for election, and in-person campaigning has been thwarted by a crackdown forcing party leaders to defect or go underground.
Khan, who was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April 2022, is currently serving a prison term in a graft case. Khan has also been embroiled in more than 150 cases, which include inciting people to violence after his arrest in May 2023.
During nationwide riots in May, Khan’s supporters from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party attacked the military’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, stormed an air base in Mianwali in the eastern Punjab province and torched a building housing state-run Radio Pakistan in the northwest.
The violence subsided only when Khan was released at the time by the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, police arrested Khan ally Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on charges of inciting people to violence in May in the city of Rawalpindi. Ahmed served as interior minister in Khan’s government until his ouster.
With inputs from agencies.
Via Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/MPkq2VB
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