Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Aalia Neelum on Thursday said she was giving the \u201clast chance\u201d to the federal government to explain the entire situation regarding the blockage of social media platform X in the country.<\/p>\n
Access to X has been disrupted since February 17, 2024, when former Rawal\u00adpindi commissioner Liaquat Chattha accused the chief election commissioner and a top Supreme Court judge of being involved in rigging the February 8 general elections.<\/p>\n
Rights bodies and journalists\u2019 organisations have condemned the muzzling of social media, while internet service providers have also lamented losses due to disruptions. The United States had also called on Pakistan to lift restrictions on social media platforms.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s hearing was taken up by a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Aalia Neelum, who heard the petitions of journalist Shakir Mahmood and others. The federal government, the Ministry of Law, the Ministry of Information and others had been made parties in the petitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow was the closure of X carried out? The federal government is being given the last chance [to explain]. The government should respond in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this, the head of the cabinet will be summoned,\u201d Justice Neelum ordered in the hearing.<\/p>\n
In the last hearing, the LHC had sou\u00adght a detailed report from the interior ministry and the Pakistan Telec\u00adom\u00admu\u00adn\u00adication Aut\u00adh\u00ado\u00adrity (PTA) on the petitions challenging the ban with a directive to explain which government institutions were still using the banned app.<\/p>\n
PTA Chairman Major General (retired) Hafeezul Rehman appeared before the bench today and submitted a written response to the court.<\/p>\n
Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Asad Bajwa informed the court that the interior ministry had no mechanism to know who was using which social media platform or application through virtual private networks (VPNs), to which Justice Neelum observed that the ministry had the mechanism to block X but not to find out who was using it.<\/p>\n
He said the PTA had formed a committee to probe the use of VPNs to which the LHC top judge said it was only to distract the court.<\/p>\n
Bajwa said a letter was also written to the social media platform\u2019s authorities, at which Justice Neelum asked if X had any agreement with the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has no agreement with X,\u201d Bajwa responded, to which the judge asked why X authorities would answer to the government when they had no agreement with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bench is not sitting just so that an answer is submitted and an eyewash is given,\u201d Justice Neelum remarked while Justice Ali Zia questioned if the PTA\u2019s own X account was operational.<\/p>\n
Upon being informed by the PTA chairman that it was, the judge noted: \u201cWhat is this? You are banning it and then using it yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n
At this, the PTA chairman said all X users in the country were using VPNs, to which Justice Neelum asked him if he himself was using a VPN to which Rehman responded that he personally was not but the authority itself was.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is illegal,\u201d Justice Neelum remarked at the PTA chairman\u2019s admission to which he apologised and said he was just informed that the body was not using VPNs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know what you came here for and you gave such a big statement,\u201d the LHC top judge told him.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Justice Farooq Haider questioned the PTA chairman if VPNs could be blocked to which Rehman said not immediately and it would take some time.<\/p>\n
Justice Neelum said to the PTA chairman that it had been a year and he had done nothing, yet was still requesting one more month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Aalia Neelum on Thursday said she was giving the \u201clast chance\u201d to the federal government to explain the entire situation regarding the blockage of social media platform X in the country. Access to X has been disrupted since February 17, 2024, when former Rawal\u00adpindi commissioner Liaquat Chattha accused the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7144,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142\/revisions\/7144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}