The Islamabad High Court (IHC) summoned the interior secretary on April 17 to provide detailed explanations for the shutdown of social media platform X, which has been inaccessible since February. This directive came during a hearing on a petition challenging the ban on X.
Access to X in Pakistan has been disrupted since February 17, following allegations of election rigging made by former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaquat Chattha against the chief election commissioner and chief justice of Pakistan on the platform.
Various rights bodies, journalists’ organizations, and internet service providers have criticized the suppression of social media, while the United States has called on Pakistan to lift the restrictions.
The Interior Ministry informed the Sindh High Court on March 20 that the social media platform was blocked based on intelligence reports. However, the Information Minister later admitted that X was already banned when the new government assumed power.
During the recent hearing, the Interior Ministry joint secretary presented a report on the platform’s outage, but the IHC Chief Justice expressed dissatisfaction with the report, demanding concrete evidence instead of verbal statements. The Chief Justice criticized the lack of reasons provided for the shutdown and questioned the basis for the decision.
The court summoned the interior ministry secretary for the next hearing on April 17 and directed him to produce evidence regarding the alleged threat to national security posed by X.
The petition, filed by Ehtisham Abbasi, called for the immediate lifting of the ban on X, citing violations of freedom of speech and other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It criticized the actions of the respondents—information ministry and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA)—as arbitrary and unlawful.