Court orders Pak govt to restore social media platform X in a week
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan High Court said on Wednesday the government must restore social media platform X within one week, a lawyer said, after more than two months of disruption ordered by the interior ministry.
The platform, formerly known as Twitter, has been rarely accessible since February 17, when jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party called for protests against a government official’s admission of vote manipulation in February’s election.
Pakistan’s communications authority later acknowledged in court papers that it had been ordered by the Interior Ministry to shut the site down.
“The Sindh High Court has given the government one week to withdraw the letter, failing which, on the next date, they will pass appropriate orders,” Moiz Jaaferi, a lawyer challenging the ban, said.
The Interior Ministry said X was blocked on security grounds, according to a report submitted to Islamabad High Court in a separate challenge to the shutdown and shared with media. “It is the sole prerogative and domain of the federal government to decide what falls within the preview of terms of ‘defence’ or ‘security’ of Pakistan and what steps are necessary to be taken to safeguard National Security,” said the report, submitted by Interior Secretary Khurram Agha.
Both the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had for weeks refused to comment on the outages. The interior ministry suggested intelligence agencies were behind the order.
The closure of a social media service “when there is request from any security or intelligence agency” is “well within the scope of provisions of the PTA act”, the report said.