Containing Imran Khan Important Than $300mn Loss? Pakistan Building 'Firewall' To Crush Dissent

While Imran Khan remains incarcerated, the cadre of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Party continue to use social media to deliver his messages from the jail.

But in the past several weeks, millions of Pakistanis have been witnessing slow internet. Such are the internet speed troubles that even a simple text over messaging apps takes a pigeon’s flight to deliver.

Experts feel the slowing of the internet is government backed as Islamabad is developing surveillance processes to cull dissent much of which in the incumbent has come from Imran and his cadre who are mostly the tech savvy younger generations of Pakistanis.

Experts say that the Sharif government is building a China-style internet firewall for surveillance and restrictions in the virtual realm.In its response the Pakistan government has played the confusion card. While Shaza Fatima, a junior minister of information and technology denied the claims, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif acknowledged that the system is undergoing a transition after which the facilities will be normalised. Fatima even blamed internet users in her country, saying the use of VPN was to be blamed for low internet speed.

But Shahzad Ahmad, director of local digital watchdog Bytes for All, told the BBC that his group has 'ample tech evident' to prove the existence of a firewall. Elaborating further, Khawaja did admit there will be some controls to prevent threatening and defamatory content against the state and individuals.

With its economy already in tatters, Pakistan Software Houses Association has said that the government's move could cost the IT sector up to $300 million and trigger a mass exodus of tech companies.

Since the protests sparked by Imran in 2023, the government blocked social media platforms as the battle for public support spilled over from the streets to the digital space.

The micro-blogging platform X has been blocked since the February polls. Imran’s party supporters are big users of X and he is the most popular Pakistani on the platform, with nearly 21 million followers