The battle for control: How Pak military establishment is targeting digital dissent

New Delhi: On February 18, Asad Ali Toor, an independent Pakistani journalist, quote-posted a news item on his X account (@AsadAToor) detailing allegations of systematic voting manipulation by a senior Pakistani bureaucrat.

In his post, Toor questioned whether the country’s Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa would “dare to take suo moto notice and probe this election rigging?”

Persisting in his queries about the systematic abuse of the election process, Toor highlighted the laxity of Pakistan’s courts in addressing electoral malpractices nationwide. Consequently, Toor was arrested by the police on February 26 for, what they called, undermining the country’s judicial institutions.

The arrest was part of a broader campaign against nearly four dozen Pakistani journalists, who mostly covered courts, and hundreds of activists to force them into silence and against raising the issue of election rigging.

Since then, the Pakistani government has maintained strict control over digital content and invoked both executive and legislative measures to regulate the country’s internet landscape.

Pakistan held its controversial elections on February 8, following months of political gerrymandering by the military establishment to ensure a favourable electoral outcome.

Despite brazen attempts, including an outright ban on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) of its jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan Army failed to manufacture a decisive electoral verdict for its favoured political parties and instead was exposed for its malfeasance, leading to its further public delegitimisation, thereby denting its decades of carefully curated holier than thou image.

The Pakistani government had blocked internet on February 8, the election day, citing "pre-emptive measures" to ensure the security of the election centres.

Even as basic internet services were restored subsequently, access to social media platforms, however, was restricted as hundreds of videos of military establishment’s brazen electoral rigging made their way to the internet, leading to widespread protests in the country.

The overwhelming evidence demonstrated that the military establishment effectively stole the election mandate from PTI in favour of the Sharif family-led Pakistan Muslim-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Bhuttoo-Zardari family-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

While the Pakistani government claimed to have restored internet fully, the global internet watchdogs reported that the access to social media sites, particularly X (formerly Twitter), was severely curtailed.

Subsequently, multiple reports claimed that the X platform was formally banned in the country, even as the Pakistani establishment continued to claim otherwise.

Interestingly, the military-dominated establishment was left exposed on March 20 when the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) buried an information in its submission to the Sindh High Court, stating that a notification from the Interior Ministry on February 17 directed the authority to ban X.

Despite this self-expose before the Sindh High Court, it took the Pakistan government two months to formally acknowledge its ban on X when the Interior Ministry made a written submission to the Islamabad High Court on April 17.

The ministry cited “upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation” to justify the ban even as it has continued to claim that X promoted digital terrorism in Pakistan and was a prime medium for delegitimising the integrity of the state and its institutions, especially Pakistan Army.

More than concerns about national security and integrity, the Pakistani government's efforts to control the digital landscape are primarily aimed at suppressing the exposure of the military establishment's brazen political machinations.

Since the February 8 elections, social media has become a prime medium for popular resentment, as all other forms and fora for protest have been criminalised in the country.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, led by the incarcerated Imran Khan, has effectively undermined the military establishment's narrative of transparent elections by providing explicit evidence of electoral malfeasance. This has significantly unsettled those in power.

Beyond political dissent from opposition parties, social media has become a lifeline for ethnic and sectarian minorities in exposing rights violations by Pakistan’s armed forces and the majoritarian community.

For instance, Baloch rights activists have used social media platforms to highlight the persistent and severe human rights violations committed by the Pakistan Army in Balochistan.

The military has historically justified its abhorrent conduct, including abductions and extrajudicial killings of Baloch people, under the guise of a national security narrative aimed at fighting terrorism, thereby avoiding accountability.

For a long period, Pakistan Army’s narrative went unchallenged with its actions finding support from the dominant Punjab province. However, social media has enabled Baloch rights activists, particularly women activists, to bring these abuses to the attention of not just Pakistani citizens, who earlier doubted Baloch claims, but also to the international audience.

As such, the reach of social media has amplified the voices of activists like Mahrang Baloch of the Baloch Yechjehti Committee and Semi Deen Baloch of Voices for Baloch Missing Persons.

These activists, who are also lead organisers of the forthcoming 'March against Baloch Genocide' (Baloch Long March) on July 28 in the port city of Gwadar, have succeeded in making their plight heard beyond Balochistan, echoing across Pakistan and the world.

This increased visibility has drawn significant attention to the ongoing human rights violations in the region by the Pakistan Army and its agencies. That the Pakistan Army’s treatment of Imran Khan, his PTI cadre, and anti-government protesters of May 9, 2023, has further facilitated a conversation about military excesses in the hinterland.

Similarly, as the Pakistan Army continues its human rights violations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, especially in the tribal belt of Waziristan, social media has become a crucial tool for common Pakhtun people to expose these abuses.

The oppression and excesses in KPK and Balochistan, coupled with the military's heavy-handed approach towards political dissent, particularly against PTI members, and brazen electoral rigging, have left the Pakistani state, especially the military establishment, exposed and delegitimised in the eyes of the people.

Importantly, despite its might, the state has been unable to discredit the narrative of political opposition, as the pro-Imran Khan, anti-army, and anti-government political-cum-civil rights narrative continues to dominate the country’s digital space.

This is more so significant as despite the Pakistani military establishment banning news media channels from broadcasting photos or videos of Imran Khan since March 2023, his anti-establishment narrative remains prevalent.

It is social media that has ensured his messages and the critique of the military establishment continue to reach a broad audience, undermining the state's efforts to control the popular narrative. The recent labelling of internet activists and more so the PTI cadre by the Pakistan Army spokesman as ‘digital terrorists’ should be seen in the light of this failure.

It is this defeat in the digital landscape and the ongoing decline in popular legitimacy that has prompted the establishment to undertake multifaceted efforts, both executive and legislative, to increase its overarching control of the country’s internet landscape.

As part of these measures, on June 30, the Pakistan government acknowledged its ongoing process of the installation of a national digital firewall, claiming it was necessary to filter and block “propaganda and unwanted content".

It is noteworthy that Pakistan's national telecom regulatory body, the PTA, already possesses the technology to block access to the internet. However, this national firewall, procured from China -- a global emblem of internet censorship and digital authoritarianism -- will significantly enhance the PTA’s capability to monitor and control Pakistan’s internet landscape on a much larger scale.

This means the government will have direct control over access to all social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X, as well as the means to monitor content usage and identify IP addresses that it perceives are pushing 'anti-state propaganda'.

Additionally, the Pakistani government is reportedly preparing a framework to regulate virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow users to circumvent national censors to access prohibited sites while shielding their identity and masking their locations.

Under this directive, it has been speculated that the government will require people to inform the Pakistan Telecom Authority about their use of VPNs, with criminal proceedings possible for non-compliance. This represents nothing but a means of using technology to curb every ounce of dissent in the country.

Therefore, instead of withdrawing from the political scene to allow the country to return to a semblance of political stability, Pakistan’s military-controlled establishment, aided by the civilian facade of Shehbaz Sharif's government, is gradually extending its extensive physical surveillance to the digital landscape, moving towards fully transforming the country into a surveillance state.

It has put Pakistan on the path of transformation to a real dystopian surveillance state, with common Pakistanis appearing destined to be pushed into an unknown territory of darkness.