“The internet slowdown is a result of the introduction of a national firewall and content filtering system aimed at increasing surveillance and censoring political dissent, especially criticism of security agencies’ interference in politics,” digital rights activist Osama Khirji told reporters.
Authorities are apparently targeting WhatsApp because of its end-to-end encryption feature, which allows users to share information securely without it being accessed by third parties.
The government, which analysts say is backed by the military, and the telecommunications authority run by a retired general declined to comment for weeks about the slowdowns.
It was the defence minister who finally admitted what millions across Pakistan had already suspected.
“We are currently in a transitional phase after which all these facilities will be available,” Khawaja Muhammad Asif told media this week.
“But there will be some restrictions to prevent threatening or defamatory content against countries and individuals,” he added, without specifying whether those restrictions would be part of the firewall.
Amid growing backlash, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja on Sunday denied the government was responsible, saying the slowdown had lasted for “a day or two”.
“A large part of the population has started using VPNs, which put a strain on the real internet and slow it down,” she said at a press conference.
Pakistan’s telecommunications authority declined to comment when contacted by journalists.
This comes after Pakistan’s most powerful military institution, the army, said it was fighting so-called “digital terrorism”.
Regular rallies have been held this year calling on the government to do more to tackle militant violence in the border region with Afghanistan, while protesters in the southwestern province of Balochistan have rallied against reports of human rights abuses in the authorities’ crackdown on separatist groups.
But analysts say the main target of digital disruption is the party of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan, who remains hugely popular and relies on a young, tech-savvy electorate.
Prominent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has filed a case in the Islamabad High Court challenging the government’s “imposition of a firewall”. The court is scheduled to hear the case on Monday.
After years of political instability, Pakistan’s economy has been caught in a cycle of IMF bailouts and rollover loans from neighboring countries.
Business leaders have warned that disruptions to internet services are compounding economic problems in a country desperate for foreign investment to unlock stunted growth.
The Pakistan Software Houses Association, which represents IT companies, said the firewall’s “unexplained opacity and ambiguity” was hurting Pakistan’s economic potential and could cost the IT sector up to $300 million.
“If this situation continues, we will see a mass exodus of businesses from Pakistan,” warned Shazad Arshad, president of the Pakistan Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association.
He added that connection speeds have dropped by up to 40 percent over the past month.
But despite authorities restricting internet connections and access to WhatsApp, Pakistan’s Punjab province last week tried to market itself as an “IT city” with a big-budget advertisement in New York’s Times Square.
“Even if firewalls were necessary for security reasons, the tests could have saved the livelihoods of thousands of freelance software developers and prevented Pakistan from losing its credibility as a reliable IT supplier.” [and] “IT-enabled services,” Pakistan Business Council CEO Ehsan Malik said on Saturday.
The journalists have reached out to WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, for comment.
Activists have long criticized the government’s censorship and control of the internet and media, which they say further restricts already limited space for free speech in the conservative country.
The social media platform “X” has been banned in Pakistan since it was used during elections to spread allegations of vote rigging against Khan’s party, which was ousted from power by a military-backed coalition.
The party’s social media team has also been subject to arrests and detentions.
Shazad Ahmad, head of Byte for All, an independent Pakistani digital rights watchdog, said the firewall was designed primarily to give the government control over the internet.
“We believe the firewall will create distrust among Pakistan’s IT investors and violate the fundamental rights of Pakistan’s citizens.”
