Pakistan internet disrupted again during opposition web broadcast

Pakistan internet disrupted again during opposition web broadcast
Pakistan internet disrupted again during opposition web broadcast

Hello and welcome to the details of Pakistan internet disrupted again during opposition web broadcast and now with the details

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) party supporters attend an election campaign rally at Khanewal in Punjab province on January 19, 2024. As Khan grapples with the courts, three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif has returned from self-imposed exile and seen his corruption cases dissolve — a sign analysts say he is the army’s favoured candidate. — AFP  pic

ISLAMABAD, Jan 20 — Pakistan’s social media and internet services were severely throttled tonight, as the party of jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan held a “virtual rally” ahead of elections in under three weeks.

The outage of , X, Instagram and YouTube is the second in two weeks coinciding with online campaign events organised 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.

Advertisement

“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.

Advertisement

Nonetheless, a Gallup Pakistan survey taken in December confirmed Khan is the nation’s most popular politician.

Google data shows PTI vastly outstripping competitors in online searches for political parties in Pakistan, with 80 per cent of the traffic.

Earlier this month, similar internet disruption marred PTI’s online campaign launch event.

Keyboard campaigning

Khan, 71, was ousted in 2022 after falling out with Pakistan’s powerful military leaders who backed him into power in 2018.

In opposition, he waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the military establishment which has directly ruled the nation for much of its history.

Khan accused them of engineering his removal from office in a no-confidence vote via a US-backed conspiracy, and of plotting an assassination attempt that saw him wounded.

The crackdown against PTI began after Khan’s brief arrest last May sparked riots, with Islamabad saying it had been targeted by “anti-state” violence.

Khan is currently languishing in jail after a second arrest in August, and has been barred from standing for office over a graft conviction.

He says the avalanche of legal cases burying him have been triggered by the military establishment to prevent him from leading PTI back to power.

PTI — credited with running a tech-savvy campaign in 2018 — has attempted to mobilise on social media to circumvent the restrictions.

As Khan grapples with the courts, three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif has returned from self-imposed exile and seen his corruption cases dissolve — a sign analysts say he is the army’s favoured candidate. — AFP

These were the details of the news Pakistan internet disrupted again during opposition web broadcast for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.

It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.

NEXT Using clues from online sexual assault video, Thai cops rescue 10-year-old victim from month-long captivity on boat

Author Information

I am Jeff King and I’m passionate about business and finance news with over 4 years in the industry starting as a writer working my way up into senior positions. I am the driving force behind Al-KhaleejToday.NET with a vision to broaden the company’s readership throughout 2016. I am an editor and reporter of “Financial” category. Address: 383 576 Gladwell Street Longview, TX 75604, USA Phone: (+1) 903-247-0907 Email: [email protected]