KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has instructed relevant authorities to ensure continuous internet access for all citizens until the general elections on February 8.
In a directive issued on Wednesday, the court prohibited the suspension of internet services and mandated the respondents to present their response by January 29.
The petition was filed by advocate and human rights activist Jibran Nasir, challenging the frequent suspension of internet services in the country.
As the political campaigning intensifies ahead of next month's elections, users have encountered multiple instances of internet outages in recent days. The disruption of social media platforms, including Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube, marked the second incident within two weeks on January 20.
Following a prolonged disruption last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) attributed the nationwide internet outage to a "technical fault" in its optic fibre network.
The PTA, on its official X account, stated, "The recent disruption in internet services was caused by a technical fault, which has been promptly rectified. Internet services have been fully restored nationwide." According to downdetector.pk, Google services and the internet service provider PTCL also experienced disruptions.
A report highlighted a decline in the relationship between the state and media freedoms over the past two years due to increased censorship, violence against journalists, and government disregard for critical media.
Published by the Institute of Research, Advocacy, and Development (IRADA) as part of its annual state of digital journalism series, the report titled
"Under Siege: Legislative, Judicial and Executive Actions Stifling Freedom of Expression and Right to Information" revealed that the PTA blocked 1.1 million URLs, including 187 mobile applications during the review period.
Around 200,000 of these blocked or removed URLs were alleged to be related to contempt of court, defense of Pakistan, glory of Islam, defamatory content, and sectarian/hate speech, according to the report.
Furthermore, the report disclosed a significant number of content removal requests from the Pakistani government to major tech platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter).
For instance, between January 2021 and June 2022, Meta restricted access in Pakistan to 12,001 items reported by the PTA for allegedly violating local laws.
