On April 16, 2021, a public notice was issued by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) stating:

“In order to maintain public order and safety, access to certain social media applications has been restricted temporarily.”

The growing unrest caused by Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) workers rioting to have their demands heard and their leader Saad Rizvi released from police custody was the apparent background to this press release.

The internet services that day were suspended purportedly for a period of 4 hours (11am to 3pm). However, many people from across Lahore and the Punjab reported disrupted or patchy mobile data services in the days that followed.

This was not an anomalous development for Pakistani citizens, as Eid, Ashura, Defence Day and other public holidays have brought us an almost expected cutoff of internet, and at times, mobile network services in the country.

As per the current rankings of the Inclusive Internet Index, Pakistan ranked 90^th out of 120 countries overall, and 97^th in terms of availability, placing it squarely in the bottom quartile of the rankings.

“Within this context, Pakistan is by far the most interesting case internationally. No other country can even come close to the 41 internet shutdowns Pakistan has witnessed in the past five years. Shutdowns have become so common that they are an established part of precautionary measures taken within the security apparatus,” writes Ben Wagner in Understanding Internet Shutdowns: A Case Study from Pakistan.

This study looks at a period of five years up till 2017. In November 2018, Berhan Taye for Access Now recorded a total of 11 shutdowns “so far”. A total of 5 disruptions in 2019 and 2 in 2020 are on record.

Shutdowns have been defined, by the #KeepItOn coalition in its 2019 report, as the intentional disruption of internet services and mobile apps to control communication.

The figures quoted above speak to the nationwide and at times city-wide disconnects that Pakistan has seen, however these do not include the long-term shutdowns that specific regions of the country have or are facing. In the Kech district of Balochistan for instance, 3G/4G services were suspended in 2017 on account of security reasons and as of 2020 the situation remained unchanged. Quetta, the provincial capital, saw a two-day internet blackout in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic that heightened the challenges the city’s residents were facing by cutting them from access to information. The ex-FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan regions have also reported inequity in terms of online access.

The ability to internet access is considered globally to be such a potent need that the UN General Assembly termed it as a ‘right’ in a non-binding resolution. Free and safe internet access is a basic right for many reasons, which include but are not limited to the access to platforms that provide a voice, acting as a catalyst of societal change, being space for commerce and being a canvas for many unique arts.

The ability to internet access is considered globally to be such a potent need that the UN General Assembly termed it as a ‘right’ in a non-binding resolution. Free and safe internet access is a basic right for many reasons, which include but are not limited to the access to platforms that provide a voice, acting as a catalyst of societal change, being space for commerce and being a canvas for many unique arts. It is a thing of beauty and perhaps the most diversely lucrative creation of man. To cut anyone off is unfair and in terms of lost opportunities, thoroughly unjust.

While a cursory search on Pakistan’s internet shutdown history urges concern, the impact goes much deeper than the obvious human rights violation. The internet availability quotient in Pakistan is marred by many factors: internet penetration, infrastructure that deepens the rural-urban divide and power outages.

With so much already working against the availability of this vital resource and bridge to information, government policy that arbitrarily enforces shutdowns is making matters significantly worse.

The Covid-19 pandemic has only crippled the situation further. The sudden shift to virtual means, for work, education, access to health information and services, or business management meant that the lack of reliable connectivity would severely impact all these arenas.

In particular, Baloch students have faced hostility and mostly indifference to their demands for internet access which at best can be said to have fallen on deaf ears.

Infrastructurally unsound regions of the country have been further marginalised and their lack of resources made glaringly obvious, bringing more serious consideration to the security versus quality-of-life debate that they have been unwillingly made a part of. Investment on and attention to bridging the urban-rural digital divide that leaves more than 35 percent (as per Amin-ul-Haque, the federal IT minister) of the population without web connectivity is an urgent need at this time.

Not only is this impacting the education and earnings of thousands, it is also bringing down e-commerce and progress in the country’s online ecosystem. The financial management company Deloitte reports:

“It is estimated that for a highly internet-connected country, the per day impact of a temporary shutdown of the internet and all of its services would be on average $23.6 million per 10 million population. With lower levels of internet access, the average estimated GDP impacts amount to $6.6 million and to $0.6 million per 10 million population for medium and low internet connectivity economies, respectively.”

If not looked at from a rights standpoint, and purely from the view that Pakistan is not in a position to bleed (at a minimum) the massive sum of $0.6 million dollars (Rs 91.92 million) per day, the case for internet shutdowns seems fairly open and shut.

The author is a lawyer by education and a digital rights activist by interest. She works with the Digital Rights Foundation as a Programme Manager. She tweets @ZainabKDurrani