Services of social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Telegram were restored in the country after being suspended for four hours on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the interior ministry directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block social media platforms from 11:00 am till 3:00 pm. The request by the interior ministry to suspend the social media platforms was made in a letter sent to the PTA chairman. The ministry, in the letter, had requested the PTA to take action on the issue “immediately”.
It gave no reason for the ban, but it came days after the rallies led by an extremist party that paralysed large parts of the country and left two police officers dead. Political parties frequently use social media to rally supporters and the announcement comes just before Friday prayers, which usually draw huge crowds to mosques where firebrand sermons have in the past catalysed protests.
The authorities have used strategic social media bans and cuts to mobile service in the past in an attempt to head off major protests by preventing leaders from issuing mass calls for demonstrations.
“In order to maintain public order and safety, access to certain social media applications has been restricted temporarily,” the PTA had said in its explanation regarding the suspension of services.
The suspension came amid protests by a religious party in the country which led to chaos and the killing of three people, including two policemen. The protests, organised in different cities, also caused massive traffic jams and distress to the citizens.
Thousands of supporters of the extremist party spilled onto the streets on Monday after their leader was detained following his calls for the expulsion of the French ambassador. The protests have largely been cleared. But in Lahore, supporters continued a sit-in at a seminary that serves as the party headquarters despite the circulation of a handwritten plea from leader Saad Rizvi to end the protests.
Later on Friday, Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed apologised for the government’s move to shut down social media services temporarily across the country, saying that it was done keeping in mind the masses’ best interest.
The interior minister said that WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook were suspended across the country as the government feared the members of the proscribed organisation would call for protests after Friday prayers.
Rasheed said that the government has defeated those spreading terrorism and inciting violence in the country, adding that the government would try to ensure people were not caused any further inconveniences related to social media.
“The ones who stopped oxygen [vans] and ambulances [from reaching hospitals during protests] were defeated today. We have banned them [the proscribed organisation] and we will move for their dissolution as well,” he said.
The government will block their passports, identity cards, and bank accounts too, the interior minister added.
CRACKDOWN ON SOCIAL MEDIA BEGINS:
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh on Friday declared a crackdown on the social media accounts used by the now proscribed religious party for actively inciting violence in the port city and “glorifying the assaults on law enforcement personnel.”
CTD Deputy Inspector-General Omar Shahid Hamid said that the terrorism watchdog has set about on a strategy with Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cybercrime wing to identify people using social media accounts to spread hate and stir up violence in the demonstrations.
“CTD has initiated action against individuals who used social media to incite violence, spread hate and glorified the assaults on law enforcement personnel. A list of TLP related social media accounts have been identified and a complaint lodged with FIA’s Cybercrime Wing,” he tweeted.
Action will be taken against all those as the lists of these “social media accounts have been identified”, he said. A complaint has been formally lodged with FIA’s cybercrime cell to initiate a probe against the people using those accounts, said the CTD DIG.
The counter-terrorism body of Sindh police said even the accounts of people, belonging to the proscribed far-right extremist party, encouraging the hatred against the state and violence meted out on the street, will be taken to task.
11PM TO 3AM