ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) made three attempts over the past three and a half years to have PTI founder Imran Khan’s official X account terminated or its content blocked, according to a report submitted to the Islamabad High Court.
The report, submitted in response to a petition seeking a ban Mr Khan’s X account, outlines the government’s efforts to remove the PTI founder’s account on X (formerly Twitter).
According to the report, the authority first approached X on Aug 21, 2022, requesting the closure of the PTI founder’s official account. The social media platform declined the request.
The PTA wrote to X again on April 18, 2024, seeking the closure of the account based on Mr Khan’s convictions in the Toshakhana, Cipher, and Iddat cases. This request was also rejected.
The report further stated that on Nov 27, 2025, the PTA asked X to block 47 tweets posted from the PTI founder’s account. X blocked only one tweet, while the remaining requests were rejected.
The PTA informed the court that it had contacted X multiple times over the past three and a half years, attempting to convince the social media platform X to either shut down the account or remove its content, but all these attempts were unsuccessful.
The PTA told the court that social media companies had been directed to register with the relevant authority in Pakistan and appoint local representatives. However, none of these companies had complied, nor had they appointed any legal persons in Pakistan.
The report said that these companies were registered in their respective countries and did not consider the laws of other states to be binding, maintaining that complaints from different countries were dealt with in accordance with their own internal laws and policies.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2026
