{"id":52616,"date":"2024-01-26T10:05:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T10:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/pti-says-its-websites-blocked-in-pakistan-ahead-of-feb-8-polls\/"},"modified":"2024-01-26T10:05:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T10:05:34","slug":"pti-says-its-websites-blocked-in-pakistan-ahead-of-feb-8-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/pti-says-its-websites-blocked-in-pakistan-ahead-of-feb-8-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"PTI says its websites \u2018blocked\u2019 in Pakistan ahead of Feb 8 polls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>The PTI on Friday alleged that its websites were \u201cblocked\u201d in Pakistan and demanded an answer from the federal authorities.<\/p>\n<p>The PTI, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1805686\/pti-loses-battle-for-bat-as-ecp-prevails-in-sc\">deprived<\/a> of its iconic \u2018bat\u2019 symbol for the upcoming polls, has fielded its leaders as independent candidates with different electoral symbols.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1807164\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>To combat confusion among voters and to ease access to election-related information, the party launched an <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/insaf.pk\/election2024\/\">online portal<\/a> on its website <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/insaf.pk\/\">insaf.pk<\/a>, as well as a \u201cback-up site\u201d, <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"http:\/\/pticandidates.com\/\">pticandidates.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It also introduced a feature whereby voters can message on Imran Khan\u2019s official Facebook account to get information about PTI-backed candidates.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dawn.com<\/em> staffers tried accessing the PTI\u2019s websites on Friday but were unable to do so through Wi-Fi or mobile data, except when using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).<\/p>\n<p>The party\u2019s official X account tagged the official handles of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), interim information minister Murtaza Solangi and interim IT minister Umar Saif.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan you explain why PTI\u2019s websites are blocked in Pakistan?\u201d the party asked in the post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are still getting symbol information from Imran Khan\u2019s Facebook page so the question is what purpose is this block serving?\u201d it asked.<\/p>\n<p>Jibran Ilyas, a member of the PTI\u2019s social media team, also tagged Saif in his post, asking, \u201cCan you tell Pakistanis why the websites of [the] country\u2019s most popular political party [are] blocked by you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The PTA has not responded to <em>Dawn.com\u2019s<\/em> request for a comment on the matter.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1808509\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The issue comes after a fake web portal \u2014 mimicking one launched by the party to provide information on PTI-backed  candidates \u2014 emerged and was found to be providing incorrect information to voters.<\/p>\n<p>It should also be noted that in recent weeks, multiple countrywide internet outages have been witnessed that coincided with the party\u2019s online events. In the most recent occurrence on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1807328\/nationwide-disruption-to-social-media-platforms-amid-pti-virtual-event-netblocks\">January 20,<\/a> internet services were interrupted an hour before the PTI\u2019s \u201cvirtual power show\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Before that, similar disruptions were reported on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1798656\">December 17<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1803919\">January 7<\/a> as well, leading the party to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1804313\/pti-asks-sc-to-take-notice-of-sundays-internet-disruption\">urge the Supreme Court<\/a> to take notice of the internet suspension.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1808200\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>For their part, the interim government had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1807771\">blamed<\/a> \u201ctechnical\u201d issues and system installations for the disruptions. Earlier this week, information minister Solangi had said that there was \u201cno guarantee\u201d that such incidents would not occur in the future.<\/p>\n<p>In the same press conference, PTA Director General Ahmed Shamim Pirzada attributed the outages to \u201ctechnical glitches\u201d and system upgrades. \u201cYou can face this for the next two to three months,\u201d he had warned.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The PTI on Friday alleged that its websites were \u201cblocked\u201d in Pakistan and demanded an answer from the federal authorities. The PTI, deprived of its iconic \u2018bat\u2019 symbol for the upcoming polls, has fielded its leaders as independent candidates with different electoral symbols. To combat confusion among voters and to ease access to election-related information, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/01\/261320293799485.png?r=132138","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}