PMLN leader Khwaja Saad Rafique calls to uplift ban on X(formerly known as Twitter). In a tweet on Thursday morning.
Rafique in his opinion said that political differences should be set within the political field and there is no use in banning the social media platform. “The ban on Twitter (X) should be lifted No one benefited from this ban imposed during the caretaker period Avoid laughter Politics will be fought only with politics,” said PMLN leader Saad Rafique in his X post.
Another PMLN member, Muhammad Zubair also agreed with his views. Commenting on his tweet, Zubair said: “Saad Rafique is right. Why be scared ? Such bans are imposed in police states. Not in Democratic countries.”
The tweet of Saad Rafique has triggered discussion on the platform. Despite the ban, government officials, and people from civil society are using the platform with the help of the VPN.
Sindh High Court has already told the government to unblock a social media platform. The court gave the government one week to do this and asked them to explain why they blocked it in the first place. The judge said there wasn’t a good reason to block the platform.
ٹویئٹر ( X ) پر پابندی ختم کی جاۓ
نگران دور میں لگائ گىئ اس پابندی کا کسی کو کوٸ فائدہ نہیں ھوا
جگ ھنسائ سے بچا جاۓ
سیاست کا مقابلہ صرف سیاست سے ھو گا
— Khawaja Saad Rafique (@KhSaad_Rafique) April 18, 2024
Government seems unclear regarding the ban on X. Federal Information Minister Atta Tarar received backlash on social media for claiming that social media application X is not accessible in Pakistan. In his media interaction, Tarar claimed that X is accessible in Pakistan without restriction.
Atta Tarar claimed on March 13th, 2024, dismissed the question thrown by a journalist asking on the covert and unannounced ban on X in Pakistan. “Twitter [X] is working,” the minister claimed, “Tweets are being posted on Twitter too. If there is a [official] notification calling for the closure of [Twitter] then you can show it to me. We can discuss it.”
This interesting interaction was telecasted live on all the news channels in Pakistan. However, several media outlets in Pakistan have denied the claims made by Atta Tarar.
Geo News quoted independent observers who confirmed that X has been blocked in Pakistan since February 17th, 2024.
According to the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) based in Rome, Twitter has been inaccessible in Pakistan across various networks since February 17th. Elizaveta Yachmeneva, the community coordinator at OONI, stated that their recent measurements confirm ongoing restrictions on Twitter for Pakistani users, and access has not been restored as of now.