The Human Rights Council of Balochistan is deeply alarmed by Amnesty International’s latest report, which exposes a transnational network of corporations enabling mass surveillance and censorship in Pakistan. These revelations highlight Pakistan’s use of advanced technologies to monitor, silence, and repress its citizens, with particularly devastating consequences in Balochistan.
Amnesty’s investigation reveals that Pakistani authorities acquired sophisticated tools, including the Web Monitoring System (WMS 2.0) and Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS), through covert supply chains funded by public money. WMS 2.0 blocks online content and tracks browsing activity, while LIMS, mandated by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), allows the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Armed Forces to intercept calls, messages, and internet use across telecom networks. These systems have no meaningful legal safeguards and have been weaponized to stifle dissent, target journalists, and shrink civic space, creating a dangerous surveillance state.
Amnesty International’s research further reveals that Pakistan acquired these tools through covert international supply chains:
China: Geedge Networks and a state-owned IT firm supply firewalls and servers.
United States: Niagara Networks provides hardware.
France: Thales DIS contributes software.
Canada: Sandvine previously powered the system, now succeeded by AppLogic Networks.
Germany: Utimaco supplies phone-tapping systems, operated through UAE-based Datafusion monitoring centres.
By exporting and maintaining these systems under their national laws, these corporations and the governments of China, the U.S., France, Canada, Germany, and the UAE overseeing them, bear direct responsibility for enabling Pakistan’s repression.
In Balochistan, surveillance technology directly facilitates atrocities by the Pakistani state. Under the guise of counterinsurgency, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and military crackdowns are carried out with impunity. From January to July 2025 alone, we have documented 926 enforced disappearances and 150 extrajudicial killings in Balochistan, including deaths in custody, staged encounters, indiscriminate military operations, and killings by state-backed militias. These abuses are inseparable from the surveillance architecture that identifies, tracks, and eliminates activists, journalists, and civilians.
The crisis in Balochistan is not an “internal matter” of Pakistan, it is a grave humanitarian emergency amounting to systemic genocide. Any state, company, or institution supplying surveillance tools to Pakistan is directly implicated in crimes against humanity.
HRCB strongly condemns these systematic violations and demands:
- That Pakistan immediately end blanket surveillance and internet shutdowns in Balochistan, halt enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, and cease targeting civilians.
- That China, Canada, the United States, France, Germany, and the UAE take urgent action to stop corporations under their jurisdiction from exporting surveillance technologies to Pakistan.
- That foreign companies supplying surveillance tools be held legally accountable for enabling censorship, surveillance, and repression.
- That international accountability mechanisms investigate and act on these crimes without delay.
Balochistan must not continue to be punished with mass surveillance, enforced disappearances, and systemic repression. The rights of its people must be respected, protected, and upheld. Silence and complicity only strengthen a machinery of fear, death, and impunity.
