Saudi officials to review Makkah Route Initiative arrangements at Karachi airport next week

ISLAMABAD: The chief of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Thursday announced a “Black Day” and protests on the one-year anniversary of last year’s Feb. 8 general elections that the party says were rigged.
The national polls were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by opposition parties like jailed ex-premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the JI headed by Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman.
The caretaker government which oversaw the electoral exercise and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deny the charges, saying mobile networks were shut down to maintain law and order. The US House of Representatives and several European countries have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations, a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.
“JI will observe Youm-e-Siyah [Black Day] on Feb. 8 over the stolen mandate and rigged elections last year,” Rehman said at a press conference in Karachi. “We have planned to stage a protest outside the ECP office in Karachi and will observe the Youm-e-Siyah throughout the country.”
The JI party did not win any National Assembly seats in the general elections but managed to clinch two provincial seats in the Sindh Assembly and one in the Balochistan Assembly. 
On Jan. 20, PTI founder Khan also called on his supporters nationwide to stage protests on Feb. 8 against the rigging of the polls. He directed Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the PTI is in power, to lead caravans from across the province for a public gathering in Peshawar, the provincial capital.
The PTI has also sought permission, yet to be granted by the local administration, to hold a political rally at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan monument on Feb. 8.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) on Thursday challenged recent amendments to the country’s cybercrime law before the Islamabad High Court, urging it to strike them down for being “unconstitutional.”
The Pakistan Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025, enacted on January 29, includes provisions making the dissemination of “fake or false” information a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison without clearly defining “fake or false” news. Stakeholders like journalists and digital rights experts say they were excluded from consultations on the bill, which prevented genuine public scrutiny of the new law.
The amendments to the Electronic Crimes Act create four new government bodies to regulate online content and broaden the definition of online harm. The government bodies are authorized to block and remove content based on ambiguous criteria that do not meet the standards of proportionality and necessity required under international human rights law, rights bodies like the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have said.
“[It is] prayed that a writ may be issued declaring that the PECA (Amendment) Act 2025 is unconstitutional, being violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, due process, fair trial and the concept of regulatory independence, as well as the doctrines of fairness, proportionality, reasonableness, and constitutional limitations or restrictions, hence void, non-est and liable to be struck down,” the PFUJ plea before the IHC reads.
The petition urged the court to “restrain and prevent” the government from using “coercive powers” granted under the PECA Act 2025 against journalists, listing the law, interior and information ministries along with the chief secretaries of all provinces and the Federal Investigation Agency as respondents in the petition.
One of the new regulatory bodies created under the law, the Social Media Protection Tribunal, comprises government-appointed members rather than independent members of the judiciary.
Another new body, the Social Media Protection and Regulation Authority, is authorized to order any social media company to remove or block content deemed to be “against the ideology of Pakistan,” be known to be “fake or false,” or to cast aspersions on various public officials. The authority can also require any social media company to register with it and impose any conditions it deems “appropriate” upon registration.
Parliament adopted the amendments last month in the context of what is widely seen as an escalating crackdown on digital speech in Pakistan, including frequently shutting down the Internet and throttling Internet networks. The social media platform X has already been banned since days after February general elections last year as allegations of rigging emerged online. There are regular reports of VPN restrictions, and the government is also moving to implement a national firewall, though it denies these moves are aimed at censorship.