Today in early morning government of Pakistan finally decided to use force against faizabad protestors in Islamabad. So they started an operation by thinking that it will be over in couple of hours and everything will be normal. But looks like the government’s plan of dispersing the protestors backfired. First, the forces fought at faizabad for six hours and than later on again to disperse them. But not only they were not successful but in reaction to the “forced action” attempt, many people in different cities of Pakistan took it to the streets and country wide protests started against the current government. In every city now there are many people protesting on streets and on many places conflicts were happened with police where lives and health of both parties (protestors and officials) were in risk. Some bad incidents reported.
Now after the situation was gone out of hands of government, for majority of internet users in Pakistan, social media is totally blocked. This may have only one reason, that videos and images of those conflict does not spread. The affected sites include Facebook, twitter, Instagram and even web version of whatsapp is blocked.
The blocked web version tells me one thing, who ever ordered these blockages, they ordered to block whatsapp too, but as after being block in middle east, whatsapp guys have implemented smart algorithms which transmit data through a number of domains and connected nodes, so this system is not very easy to block for any government or some entity.
This is again the irony here, instead of trying to contain the situation there people’s right to remain informed is being taken away from here. Not only all the major ISPs are blocking the social media websites and services but also all the news channels have been gone missing from the cable networks.