Daily Times

The PML-N on Friday raised doubts about the credibility of a report released by the government earlier this week regarding manipulative use of social media accounts to defame Pakistan, lashing out at the Centre for the inclusion of journalists and political opponents in the document ‘based on assumptions’.

National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf and Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry had unveiled the report in a press conference two days back.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called the government’s ‘Anti-State Trends Deep Analytics Report’ ‘extremely misleading and shoddy’, and also likened the incumbent government’s policies to those seen during martial law eras. “Under a martial law, political leaders and journalists are called traitors […] what is the difference between [those allegations] and a political government that implicates political parties and patriots as anti-state?” he asked.

Abbasi claimed that a Canada-based company which the government had cited as the source of the data had confirmed that it had neither sold any data to Pakistan nor provided it in any capacity. He went on to point out that the government had shown Kashmir as part of India on five or six different places in the report and maintained that “had the Centre even read the report, they would have been more responsible”.

Abbasi said the document claims three million tweets were made, but fails to mentions what were they about – and does not even indicate whether the tweets are against or pro-Pakistan. “If this government has expertise in anything, it is lying,” he said, questioning why the government has clubbed journalists and the opposition together with India and Israel based on ‘mere assumptions’. “A large portion of the report is against Pakistan’s political parties,” he said, adding that it failed to determine whether the tweets were in favour of Pakistan or against its interests. “The names of several journalists have been included in this report and when they were are asked for evidence, they said it was based on assumptions,” Abbasi continued. Former senator Afsaryab Khattak, PPP leader Farhatullah Babar, former MNA Bushra Gohar, and other prominent personalities have been included by the government among people who uploaded anti-state tweets, he said. Moreover, the name of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ex-wife, Reham Khan, is also included in the anti-state tweet list, Abbasi said, taking a jibe at the government.

Abbasi said it was ‘shocking’ to note that criticism of the government’s alleged corruption was dubbed as a matter of national security. He said the country’s problems could not be resolved through tweets and “concocted” reports. “This government’s policies have left us isolated from the world […] we were so helpless that we had to take data from a Canada-based company,” the former premier went on to say, continuing to deride the government.

Drawing attention to a recent 8-hour meeting – where Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Faiz Hameed briefed the parliamentarians on the situation in Afghanistan – he said PTM and PML-N members were present during the session. “Such actions (releasing the report) are being taken to divert attention from the developing situation in Afghanistan,” he said, reminding the government that “mere reports and tweets do not improve a country’s situation”.

Speaking on the occasion, PML-N leader Khurram Dastgir termed the report “shoddy and extremely misleading.”