Case Update Status

Website was restored later on January 27.

Summary of Case

Dawn: The PTI on January 25, alleged that its websites were “blocked” in Pakistan and demanded an answer from the federal authorities. The PTI, deprived of its iconic ‘bat’ symbol for the upcoming polls, has fielded its leaders as independent candidates with different electoral symbols. To combat confusion among voters and to ease access to election-related information, the party launched an online portal on its website insaf.pk, as well as a “back-up site”, pticandidates.com. It also introduced a feature whereby voters can message on Imran Khan’s official Facebook account to get information about PTI-backed candidates. Dawn.com staffers tried accessing the PTI’s websites on Friday but were unable to do so through Wi-Fi or mobile data, except when using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The party’s official X account tagged the official handles of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), interim information minister Murtaza Solangi and interim IT minister Umar Saif. “Can you explain why PTI’s websites are blocked in Pakistan?” the party asked in the post. “People are still getting symbol information from Imran Khan’s Facebook page so the question is what purpose is this block serving?” it asked. Jibran Ilyas, a member of the PTI’s social media team, also tagged Saif in his post, asking, “Can you tell Pakistanis why the websites of [the] country’s most popular political party [are] blocked by you?” The PTA has not responded to Dawn.com’s request for a comment on the matter. The issue comes after a fake web portal — mimicking one launched by the party to provide information on PTI-backed candidates — emerged and was found to be providing incorrect information to voters. It should also be noted that in recent weeks, multiple countrywide internet outages have been witnessed that coincided with the party’s online events. In the most recent occurrence on January 20, internet services were interrupted an hour before the PTI’s “virtual power show”. Before that, similar disruptions were reported on December 17 and January 7 as well, leading the party to urge the Supreme Court to take notice of the internet suspension. For their part, the interim government had blamed “technical” issues and system installations for the disruptions. Earlier this week, information minister Solangi had said that there was “no guarantee” that such incidents would not occur in the future. In the same press conference, PTA Director General Ahmed Shamim Pirzada attributed the outages to “technical glitches” and system upgrades. “You can face this for the next two to three months,” he had warned.

Category of Incident

Censorship

ICCS Status

ICCS Divisions: 0803-Acts related to freedom of expression or control of expression

ICCS Group: Missing

ICCS Class: 08039-Other acts related to freedom of expression or control of expression

ICCS Crime: Acts related to freedom of expression or control of expression

Reported By

Dawn

Date of incident

25

Month

January

Year

2024

Name of affected person

All users of the wesbite

Other affected persons

All users of the wesbite

Name of affected organization

Insaf.pk

Other affected organizations

pticandidates.com

Action by

Website blocked; unclear by who

City

Countrywide

Province

Countrywide

Designation

N/A

Professional category

N/A

Age of victim

N/A

Marital Status

Compensation Details

Amount of compensation announced by government: No compensation was announced

Date of compensation announcement by government:

Date of compensation paid by government:

Amount of compensation announced by others:

Date of compensation announced by others:

Date compensation paid by others:

FIR Details

Was FIR registered ?: No

Court Details

Was case investigated ?: Not Applicable as websites were not working

Court where case was presented:

Name of prosecuting lawyer:

Date of first court hearing:

Date of last court hearing:

Status of court case:

Journalist Union Status

PFUJ

No version was recorded

APNS

CPNE

PBA

Media Source Status

Media reports:

Condemn Status

Colleague of victim

No version was recorded

Employer organization

No version was recorded

Press Club Status

Press club 1: No version was recorded

Press club 2:

Press club 3: