Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has acknowledged the prolonged suspension of X (formerly Twitter) in Pakistan, backtracking on his earlier statement that the platform was accessible.
The newly appointed minister claimed during a press conference on March 13 that X was accessible in the country. He made the statement in response to a question from a reporter without barely hinting at the continuing unexplained ban on the app. Instead, he remarked that people who said the platform was not working could show him a notification on its blocking.
However, in a bizarre turn of events, the minister himself has admitted that X had been inaccessible in the country. In an interview with WE News, Tarar says the platform was already banned when the new government took over. X has been inaccessible since February 17 in Pakistan, over a week after the general elections took place (February 8).
“When we came into government, Twitter [now X] was already suspended,” the minister says. “There is no official notification but everyone can see that its signal and frequency are not working normally and it is definitely true that it [the app] is being used via VPN.” (Translated roughly from Urdu.)
Tarar says he would like there to be a charter on the “dos and don’ts” and the “red lines” that must not be crossed on social media. “Political parties should talk about this,” he added. It is important to note that Tarar himself had denied the suspension of X last week. His contradictory fresh statement only adds more confusion and uncertainty as to why X has been banned in the country for over a month and on what grounds.
X started facing disruption after former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha publicly accused the chief election commissioner and chief justice of Pakistan of involvement in “rigging” in the February 8 polls. The intermittent disruption, which has not been addressed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) yet, has entered its second month without any clarity regarding its restoration.
The ban has been denounced by over 60 civil society organisations, rights advocates, journalists, and other stakeholders. Leading rights group, including Amnesty International, have called on the government for immediate restoration of X, terming the ban a violation of Article 19 of the Constitution.
“These actions not only infringe upon the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and access to information but also set a troubling precedent of throttling genuine political discourse in the country,” reads the joint statement.
In a latest development, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has also joined the call for X’s restoration.
