Govt forces popular political discussion forum Siasat.pk offline

Apparently the website's domain hosts were ordered by the FIA to remove the site from their servers

In an unprecedented move, the government on Friday apparently forced a popular political discussion web forum Siasat.pk offline, however it was not immediately clear why the government had taken the step.

Siasat.pk, through it’s social media accounts, said on Friday that its name servers had been “suspiciously removed” by their Islamabad based domain host, Nexus.pk, without being approached before hand or being warned.

Siasat.pk is down because our name servers were suspiciously removed at Nexus.pk(Our domain host) pic.twitter.com/YT0K6FYIDF

— Siasat.pk (@siasatpk) September 11, 2015

siasat.pk is down is because our name servers were suspiciously removed from Nexus.pk - Just spoke to them and they have no idea who did it

— Adeel Habib (@AdeelHabib_) September 11, 2015

Siasat.pk has been shut down by the Government of Pakistan. We were never warned or contacted regarding anything. pic.twitter.com/BolwsuRj6D

— Siasat.pk (@siasatpk) September 11, 2015

The site, which hosts recordings of popular television talk shows along with discussion forums, added that they had received threats from “higher authorities” around five months ago, after which they had setup an alternative domain as well as a backup. However, on Friday that was down too.

While the domain host initially did not disclose who or how the site had been taken down, Siasat.pk’s administrator Adeel Habib was later told by the F-10 Markaz-based company that they had received a request from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to remove the site from their servers immediately.

While the government has previously opted to block websites, those hosted from within or outside Pakistan through the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, this is the first reported incident of a site being forced off the servers by the government.

In April, Adeel had posted on the forums that the site had received threats from “higher authorities” who had warned him of shutting down the site “within five minutes” if he did not comply with their demands.

We are seriously thinking to move our website from .pk to .net after today.http://t.co/eTND3GQJsa pic.twitter.com/tb3Br2kbU7

— Siasat.pk (@siasatpk) September 11, 2015

“I will not get into the details due to security reasons. It just made me realize how vulnerable .pk domains are. Therefore as a backup, I have these domains,” Adeel said.

While '.pk' domains are hosted in Pakistan, Nexus.pk lists that its servers are hosted in the US with ‘state of the art security’ but then surprisingly mentions that it does not “house your websites, applications on servers being fed with bandwidth passing through 'bottleneck' back bones (Like PTCL).”

The site, however, said that it had managed to restore its name servers but it would take a little while to restore the website. A mirror of the website was active on a different domain extension.

Siasat.pk is ranked at 98 in Pakistan receiving most of its traffic from within Pakistan with Saudi Arabia, UK and the US.



 

https://twitter.com/defencepk/status/642345076572618752

Another Gullucracy of Gullu Government an online news portal @siasatpk has been shutdown #BringBackSiasatpk #ReasonsWhyPMLNisCorrupt

— Usman Ahmed (@itsusmans) September 11, 2015

Strongly Condemn the blocking of @siasatpk this is totally against the freedom of thought.

— Noshad Rahman Kakakhel (@NoshadKakakhel) September 11, 2015

We Stand With @siasatpk in This Poor Act by The Government

— SiasiTv (@SiasiTv) September 11, 2015

@wishrajpoot
No reasons given. AFAIK, siasat.pk only hosts video clips from TV channels & people comment on them.

— Ahmed أحمد خان (@periqlytos) September 11, 2015

I condemn and against shameful act by government to ban @siasatpk #SiasatPkVoiceofPk

— Mohammad Naveed (@naveedzafarpk) September 11, 2015

Closing of Siasat.pk by fed government without any notice shows it is not a democratic party but Badshahat and ghunda gardi @siasatpk

— EsShah (@Essha_PTI) September 11, 2015

Ppl got political awareness from @siasatpk

— Osama أسامة (@WordsByOsama) September 11, 2015

https://twitter.com/ZeeshanJan/status/642342509562200066