‘Inherently undemocratic’: Pakistan suspends mobile services on voting day
Al Jazeera
The government temporarily suspends mobile phone services as it holds the parliamentary and provincial election.
Pakistan has suspended mobile phone services nationwide on election day, in a move a digital rights group said was “inherently undemocratic”.
A statement from the Ministry of Interior on Thursday said “precious lives have been lost” in recent armed attacks and such “security measures are essential to maintain the law and order situation and to deal with potential threats”.
One police officer was killed on Thursday when gunmen opened fire on a patrol vehicle in the northwestern area of Tank, local media reports said.
At least 28 people were killed in twin bomb blasts outside candidates’ offices in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Wednesday in attacks claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) group, and two candidates have been shot dead in the lead-up to the vote.
NetBlocks, a global internet watchdog, said data confirmed there was a disruption to mobile phone and internet services “corroborating widespread user reports of outages”.
