Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, is proposing to ban all social media platforms for six days over safety concerns for thousands of religious processions starting next week, the province’s Information Minister Uzma Bukhari said on Friday.
The proposal concerns the Ashura procession of Muharram, a 10-day period of mourning by minority Shiite Muslims. The event is the holiest in the Shiite calendar and marks the death of the seventh-century political and religious leader Hussein bin Ali.
Hussein was the grandson of Muhammad, the last Muslim prophet.
“It is a recommendation and no decision has been taken so far,” Buhari told Reuters, adding that the government had received several reports of sectarian issues on social media which “could plunge the country into unrest”.
The measure is aimed at protecting minorities from sectarian violence, the provincial government said in a letter to Pakistan’s interior ministry on Thursday.
“Social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok will be suspended across Punjab to curb hateful content and misinformation,” the letter, seen by Reuters, said.
The Interior Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Pakistan has blocked access to X since its February elections, with the Interior Ministry saying in a court filing in April that it was due to national security concerns.
Civil society and human rights groups have criticized the ban as an attack on freedom of speech and access to information in a deeply polarized country amid allegations of election fraud.
The party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan claims the suspension of mobile phone services on election day and the subsequent X-ban were an attempt to hurt his supporters, who rely heavily on social media.
The court is scheduled to rule on the latest of Khan’s numerous convictions on July 12, the first day of the latest ban. It is unclear whether the ban is linked to threats of protests by his supporters.
First uploaded: 07 May 2024 16:08 IST
