YouTube was disrupted in Pakistan last night during PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s speech to a crowd at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh. The format minister claimed that the government temporarily blocked YouTube in order to prevent live access to his speech at a political rally.
The YouTube blocking accusation came after the electronic media regulator banned live broadcasts of Khan’s speeches on Saturday, citing what it called his “hate speech” against state institutions.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) said in a statement on Saturday that Khan’s speeches were “prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and likely to disturb public peace and tranquility”.
It also prohibited news channels from broadcasting live broadcasts of his speeches with immediate effect, but made an exception for recorded speeches.
Soon after Saturday’s television ban, Khan’s party vowed to go live on “500+ YouTube and Facebook channels”. However, many Pakistani social media users reported difficulties accessing YouTube on Sunday, just as Khan was about to deliver a speech in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Many users took to Twitter to see if YouTube was down or if it was simply an internet outage.
Former minister and senior PTI leader Hammad Azhar claimed that ‘access to YouTube appears to have been illegally and forcefully shut down by this fascist and coward regime,’ while others shared tweets claiming a YouTube outage.
The YouTube hashtag is trending on Twitter in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the PML-N government is considering whether to charge the former prime minister for his provocative speech.
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