Pakistan: Authorities must protect the right to peaceful protest and lift communications blackout amid Jammu & Kashmir protests

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1. The recent protests in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir and the brutal response to them lay bare a recurring paradox: governments that claim to defend order often end up undermining the very legitimacy they seek to maintain.

   At least nine people have died, six protesters and three police officers, and hundreds more are injured amid clashes during demonstrations in the region. All this is unfolding under a total communications blackout, with no mobile, landline, or internet service, imposed by the authorities from September 28 onward.

   What is the deeper injury here? A state that silences communications in the name of security is not protecting its people. It is infantilizing them. It imposes panic, sows misinformation, crushes civil society, and deprives citizens of the means to speak, to protest, to be human. The blackout has further exacerbated the situation by restricting mobility, impacting access to essential services, and increasing the possibility of misinformation.

   This is not a minor lapse. It is a fundamental affront to the rule of law. Under international human rights obligations, the state must facilitate peaceful assembly, not crush it preemptively. Even if a small minority of protesters resort to violence, that does not justify neutering all expression. The use of force must always be necessary, proportionate, and subject to transparent, impartial review—standards that the authorities must now heed.

   Two ironies stand out. First: the more a regime clamps down, kills, censors, and silences, the more it undermines its own moral standing. When dissent is suppressed not through persuasion but through bricks and bullets, the state loses authority. Second: the very means designed to suppress—blackouts, policing, intimidation—often inflame protests rather than quell them.

   What should follow?

   1. Lift the communications blackout immediately. The state cannot credibly claim security when it forbids citizens to communicate.
   2. Conduct a transparent and impartial investigation into all deaths and injuries, including alleged excessive force, and hold accountable those responsible.
   3. Protect peaceful protest, even in times of political tension. Protest is not an inconvenience. It is a thermometer of legitimacy.

   In short, in crushing dissent, Pakistan risks not only greater unrest but an enduring loss of credibility. The tragedy in Kashmir is not just the blood spilled. It is the erosion of civil order from within. A government that fears its people fears its own irrelevance.

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