E-Resistance Blooms in Pakistan

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Pakistan's student community may be made up of young members of the country's elite, but they have become a vital addition to the lawyers' democracy movement. The students, and Pakistan's independent media—like the Geo, Aaj, and ARY television channels—have moved rapidly to the Internet to disseminate news and information locally, as much as possible, and to galvanize the Pakistani diaspora and international community. "It's not really the ingenuity of the medium, but citizens' journalism coming out in unprecedented force," says Kiran Khalid, a New York-based American-Pakistani freelance reporter working on a documentary on media censorship in Pakistan.

Indeed, the LUMS protest sparked one in Boston at the same time, thanks to Facebook. News of a protest by opposition leader Benazir Bhutto sparked one in London, led by Jemima Khan, the former wife of another opposition leader, Imran Khan, who is under house arrest. Since the weekend, students have been holding "flash" protests in Karachi, the country's commercial capital. Through cell-phone text messages, students have been gathering, 10 at a time, across the city, shouting protest slogans, and disappearing quickly before the police arrive. If it sounds like a youth gimmick, consider the dangers involved. A student flash mob could find itself in hostile territory, liable to arrest.

Relying on Text Messages

Indeed, for ordinary Pakistanis, the cell-phone text message has proved a saving grace, one not yet withdrawn by Musharraf. Internet penetration in Pakistan is low, but Pakistan is one of the world's fastest-growing cell-phone markets, with user numbers growing 73% this past year. The country of 160 million currently has 67 million cellular subscribers, and, according to Pakistan watchers, in the past week many Pakistanis have been sending and receiving at least 10 text messages a day from relatives overseas who watch the international news on Pakistan and feed the information back home. A conservative estimate of 500 million text messages a day is a bonanza for cell-phone operators.

Leading the information dissemination charge, however, are Web sites, the most popular being pkpolitics.com. The site, run from London, posts original daily news updates, newspaper Web sites, and streaming video interviews by Pakistan's most popular—and now gagged—television hosts, Talat Hussain of Aaj TV and Hamid Mir of Geo TV. They continue to report in Pakistan. Very quickly after their channels were pulled off the air, they found a way to film, record, and ship the stories out via Dubai, where it is beamed to the world via cable TV and the Internet. Pakistanis are buying satellite dishes in record numbers, even though the government has tried to stop their sales. Musharraf has accused the reporters of sedition and potentially aiding terrorism with their reporting. They could face trial by military court without representation. Already, attempts have been made to block the online site of The News, a leading English-language paper, and the owner of Jhang, an Urdu daily critical of Musharraf, has been threatened.

Expatriate Pakistanis have helped keep up the pressure on foreign governments. Ali Ahsan is a New York lawyer and son of Aitzaz Ahsan, Pakistan's top lawyer, who represented the deposed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and is now languishing in solitary confinement in a Rawalpindi prison. He says the Internet has been vital for the diaspora, especially in the U.S., to connect with one another and with their local senators and congressmen, who can weigh in on Washington's Pakistan policy. "The lawyers are Pakistan's Buddhist monks for the moment," he says, making a reference to the leaders of the opposition in Burma.

Expat Experts Doing Their Part to Help

Anil Kalhan, a professor of law at Fordham Law School in New York, runs his own Web site and has been writing on the legality of Musharraf's moves for Asia Media as well as blogging on Dorf on Law, which he says has attracted some attention from the local legal community.

Finally, there is the quaint chapatimystery.com Web site run by Manan Ahmed, a Pakistani PhD student at the University of Chicago studying the Arab invasions of India. His site is rich with pictures of the protests against Musharraf, and he is passionate about his mission. "With the media being muzzled, there will be lots of rumor and misinformation spread through official sources in Pakistan," he says. "The Internet is keeping this agitation alive, and this is very, very important, because when the next catalyst for change against Musharraf surfaces"—and it could be the chief justice, the students, or the exiled opposition leader Nawaz Sharif—"there will be accurate information out there for them to rely on."

Kripalani is BusinessWeek's India bureau chief .