Islamabad: The Pakistani authorities have severely restricted internet services in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) since June 5, the day protests erupted in the region calling for electoral reforms and other socio-political demands. The indefinite and blanket internet shutdown imposed by the authorities in PoK violates basic human rights like the right to peaceful assembly of the people guaranteed under Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a report has detailed.
“Earlier this year, it allowed the State to prevent mobilisation and conduct elections with allegations of large-scale rigging. However, this is emblematic of a broader and systemic issue within the domestic legal framework governing internet shutdowns, one that permits such arbitrary restrictions by design. As such, these structural issues need to be addressed and fixed to ensure, at the very least, that the process of imposing internet shutdowns is more transparent,” Mohammad Zayaan Asmi wrote in ‘Opinio Juris’.
In recent months, PoK has witnessed the most extensive confrontation between the local population and the Pakistani state in decades, with deadly violence, suspension of the internet, and allegations of police brutality. The protests led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), which initially began over increasing prices of electricity and essential commodities, transformed into a movement calling for political reforms, greater accountability, and representative government.
Digital rights groups have highlighted how Pakistan, by imposing arbitrary internet shutdowns, violates its international obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the ICCPR by curbing freedom of expression. According to the report, the legal architecture of internet shutdowns in Pakistan is flawed and does not function in a transparent manner.
“Internet shutdown orders are usually issued by the army or other police agencies to the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC), based in the Interior Ministry, which then scrutinises the order and decides whether to impose the shutdown. Once this is done, the order is sent to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), which is a regulatory body responsible only for implementation of orders. The PTA communicates the orders to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country, which are forced to comply with them or face punitive consequences,” wrote Asmi.
Apart from NCMC, other bodies within Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, like the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), also issue orders of internet shutdowns. Empirical evidence has revealed that NCMC is the one that actually imposes internet shutdowns most of the time. Such evidence further reveals that the procedure of imposing internet shutdowns in Pakistan, in terms of legality, has become a checkbox exercise based on a mechanical process, where the NCMC rarely challenges the directives issued by the army.
The lack of legal infrastructure in Pakistan has resulted in internet shutdowns becoming an ad-hoc and arbitrary exercise of authority without a clear legal mandate, and it becomes difficult to challenge the internet shutdown order as the authorities do not release it in the public domain, the report mentioned.
Last month, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said the recent unrest in PoK resulted from longstanding political and socioeconomic grievances, institutional distrust and governance deficits and an increasingly confrontational state response, including the disproportionate use of force.
In its fact-finding report ‘Civic Spaces under Strain’ in PoK, the HRCP said, “While accounts differed sharply on the nature of JAAC, the scale and causes of violence, and the conduct of security forces, there was broad recognition among political and community stakeholders that the underlying grievances required a political response. The resort to coercive measures in place of sustained dialogue appears to have deepened polarisation and eroded public trust.”
The HRCP stated that the unrest had implications for various rights and freedoms beyond the elections, including the rights to life, liberty and security of person; freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association; freedom of movement; access to information; and participation in public affairs. It said that the prolonged internet and mobile shutdowns, restrictions on movement, disruption of access to essential commodities and healthcare, arrests of activists and journalists and the use of anti-terrorism and other detention provisions narrowed civic space in PoK.
