Pakistan: PTI to move HCs over harassment of its social media activists

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has decided to move high courts over alleged harassment of its social media activists following protests and trending online campaigns about Imran Khan's ouster, Pakistan media reported.

"Petition challenging the harassment of PTI social media activists has been finalized and will be filed in high courts," The Express Tribune reported citing PTI's Central Secretary-General, Asad Umar's tweet.

This development comes after Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency arrested eight people from across Punjab province. However, FIA has not associated the online campaigner with any political party, still, PTI said that they will move to the high court against the harassment of its social media activists.

Yesterday, Azhar Mashwani, the former focal person for digital media in Punjab, had urged the party leader to seek for court's help against the alleged harassment of PTI social media volunteers by the FIA, The Express Tribune reported.

The residence of PTI's focal person on digital media, Arslan Khalid was raided by unidentified person hours after the party was ousted in the wee hours of Sunday.

PTI through their official Twitter account claimed that Khalid's house was raided and his family's mobile phones were taken away. It further stated that Khalid had "never abused anyone on social media and never attacked any institutions," according to The Express Tribune.

A day earlier, FIA arrested a "mastermind" and seven other members from his network against an ongoing social media propaganda campaign against army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, The News International reported.

During the interrogation, the "mastermind" revealed the names of the other six members of his network and on the basis of that information, the agency arrested the other seven people.

From 2,100 Twitter accounts, a total of 200,000 tweets were posted against the Pakistani army and the agency has identified around 2,000 Twitter accounts involved in hate speech, according to The News International.

Meanwhile, the FIA Cybercrimes director said that at least 50,000 web pages had been identified in connection with the propaganda campaign against the Pakistani Army and judiciary.

( With inputs from ANI )

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