Pakistan restricted social media access in the country on Saturday as the party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan organized a virtual rally.
“Live metrics show a nation-scale disruption to social media platforms across Pakistan, including X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube,” NetBlocks, an independent internet watchdog, posted on X.
“The incident comes as persecuted opposition leader Imran Khan’s political party, PTI, launches its second virtual gathering.”
Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube were severely throttled as Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) planned to live stream PTI speeches.
Responding to Netblocks post, the PTI said: “Shame on the caretakers that are causing damage to Pakistanis only.”
However, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) denied any claims of wrongdoing in the nationwide internet outage. “The recent disruption in internet services was caused by a technical fault, which has been promptly rectified. Internet services have been fully restored nationwide,” said PTA in a statement on X.
The internet outage is the second such instance in a month. On January 7, internet was snapped in Pakistan to allegedly thwart PTI’s plan of holding a virtual fundraising telethon.
Allegations of rigging
Pakistan is all geared up to hold elections on February 8 but Imran Khan and his party members have accused the government of pre-poll rigging. Khan and his party say that the military is attempting to oust him from the election race.
On January 2, a rights watchdog, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) confirmed the allegations saying that Imran Khan’s party is being targeted by “systematic dismemberment” and “pre-poll rigging”.
Background
After weeks of political turmoil, in April 2022, Imran Khan was forced to step down as Pakistan’s Prime Minister as he was ousted through a no-confidence motion in the parliament. The move came after the 71 year old had a falling out with the military that had first helped him win the 2018 elections. The former PM is currently in jail for corruption charges.
