ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram, has said occupying powers were increasingly using fake news and disinformation campaigns to subdue freedom struggles in Kashmir and Palestine, state-run APP said on Tuesday. 

The conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have become key battlegrounds in an information war that goes far wider than their tightly drawn physical borders. Carefully crafted social media posts and other online propaganda are fighting to make people around the world take sides, harden their positions and even move broader public opinion.

While plenty of real imagery and accounts of the ensuing carnage have emerged, they have been intermingled with users pushing false claims and misrepresenting videos from other events.

“We are witnessing this today in the Gaza war and have witnessed this consistently in the case of occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Akram told the UN Committee on Information on Monday, referring to online disinformation campaigns.

Akram voiced regret that the use of digital media was “turbocharging” the spread of disinformation “to promote Islamophobia to justify foreign occupation and aggression to turn victims of aggression into the culprits.”

This had led Pakistan to initiate a resolution on disinformation which was unanimously adopted last year, the Pakistani envoy said, adding that consultations would soon take place to advance its objectives. 

“Pakistan would welcome the development of an inter-governmentally formulated code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms,” Akram said, adding that the increasing use of AI tools to spread false information and conduct digital surveillance needed to be addressed. 

“At the core of information manipulation, Internet blackouts, censorship and the use of special media laws by the occupation authorities is a sinister design to de-legitimize freedom struggles and perpetuate a climate of fear, intimidation and violence,” Akram added.

In some instances with regards to the Gaza war, online propaganda simply involves the framing of real events, violent images and videos, and hate speech to emphasize the guilt of one side and vindicate the other.

But much of the material relies on the creation of what’s commonly referred to as fake news, in the form of fabricated stories published on social media that repurpose or mislabel real photos or videos.

For example, one post on X (formerly Twitter) that was viewed 300,000 times used a photo of an accidental fire at a McDonald’s restaurant in New Zealand to falsely claim the company had been attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters for its perceived support of Israel. Despite being debunked, the story was still the focus of heated discussions on social media channels.

There are also reports of excerpts from video games and old TikToks being shared with claims they are from real current events in Gaza, and fake government agency social media accounts posting disinformation.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday sought replies from the government and bar associations in a case involving accusations levelled by six high court judges of intimidation and interference by the country’s intelligence agencies in judicial matters.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan took up the case after six out of eight Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges accused the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of intimidating and coercing them over legal cases, particularly those with significant political consequences.

The judges provided various examples of alleged interference, including a case concerning Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, and mentioned incidents where they said their relatives were abducted and tortured, and their homes were secretly surveilled, aiming to coerce them into delivering favorable judgments.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa directed Attorney-General Mansoor Usman Awan to submit the federal government’s response in the case, ruling that if any intelligence agency or institution wanted to submit their response, they could do it until May 6.

“We all sitting in the court want to see judiciary independent,” he said. “Anyone in this court who doesn’t want judiciary’s independence [from external pressure], they can come forward.”

The development came after five high courts in the country, including the IHC, submitted their suggestions in the Supreme Court to prevent meddling of intelligence agencies in judicial affairs.

Chief Justice Isa also sought suggestions from the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association before the next hearing.

“I will never accept any interference from any source and there has not been a single complaint since my assumption of this office to me or the SC’s registrar,” he said.

The letter by the IHC judges earlier stirred frantic debate in Pakistani political, media and legal circles that prompted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to set up an inquiry commission late last month to investigate the accusations. But former chief justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, who was appointed head of the commission, recused himself, leading to uncertainty about the process.

Chief Justice Isa, who has repeatedly said that judicial meddling would not be tolerated, mentioned in Tuesday’s hearing that such interference could occur in multiple ways.

“Interference can be from within and without, from intelligence agencies, from one’s colleagues and family members or from social media,” he said.

The top judge maintained that judgments and court orders “shout” on their own if there was interference.

During the hearing, Justice Athar Minallah said there had been no interference during his time as a judge of the Islamabad High Court. He said this was a matter of public interest and a case involving the armed forces as they were the “defenders of the country.”

“We also have to maintain the image of our armed forces,” Justice Minallah remarked. “These are our soldiers who defend the country.”

The court ruled that no new petitioners would be made respondents in the case and adjourned the hearing till May 7.