Syed Talat A. Shah
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday issued notices to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Ministry of Information over the closure of X, formerly Twitter. IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq conducted a hearing on the petition filed by a citizen against the X outage for more than two weeks. During the hearing, IHC CJ asked: “Is X closed?” The petitioner’s lawyer told the court that X had been closed in Pakistan since February 17. “This matter was also before the Sindh High Court, what happened to it?” Justice Farooq inquired. The lawyer informed the court that the SHC will hear a petition related to contempt of court today. Justice Farooq said that the court was issuing notices for the next week. It is pertinent to mention that SHC Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi on February 21 ordered the PTI to immediately restore the internet services in the country. The orders came during a hearing on a case about the shutdown of internet service and social media platforms where the issue of restriction on internet services on Election Day was also discussed. Internet services and social media platforms including X, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook, and other services were restricted as the polling began on February 8. The caretaker government had said that the action was taken owing to threat alerts and for the safety of voters across the country. While, the internet services were largely restored the following day, user began facing issues accessing X on February 17. The social media platform has since been restricted intimately across the country as users complained of slow or non-accessibility to the platform.
