To understand that information is power, all you need to do is look at the lengths to which repressive regimes go to thwart access.

It should come as no surprise that on the fateful night of Musharraf’s first coup in 1999, one of the only showdowns occurred at the state-run PTV television station. The offices were stormed by armed men, some backing Musharraf and others backing then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. At the time PTV was the only news station in Pakistan, so controlling its broadcast meant controlling the news. PTV went off the air for 3 hours that night. When it returned, it was to announce the dismissal of Sharif’s government.

Loss of access to communications has become a warning sign to Pakistanis that trouble may be brewing. In September 2006, a massive power outage caused an interruption of television broadcasts, spurring rumors that another coup had transpired. In that instance a technical failure, not the Army, was to blame.

This time around, when Musharraf declared de facto martial law on November 3, there were many more television stations to shut down âe” ironically the very same private stations that were allowed to flourish under his rule. He also placed severe restrictions on print media, leaving most Pakistanis with limited information about what is happening inside their own country. However, such measures no longer control the flow of information as effectively as they did eight years ago.

In 1999 it’s estimated that only 1% of Pakistan’s population had Internet access. Since telecommunications deregulations in 2003, nearly three-dozen ISPs have mushroomed in Pakistan, providing home Internet connections (albeit mostly low-bandwidth) at more affordable rates to millions of Pakistanis. For those with access, the Internet has become a primary source of information during martial law.

In addition, the proliferation of mobile phones (over 70 million subscribers in 2007 according to Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) makes it easier for Pakistanis to organize and share information during political crises.

Indeed, the struggle was on from the beginning between those seeking to control technology, and those seeking to subvert repression. Days after martial law was declared, the ousted Chief Justice managed to address a crowd of supporters via an amplified cell phone call for a couple of minutes before Pakistan security forces cut mobile phones in Islamabad to sever the connection.

Much like in Burma, technology has played a critical role in mobilizing resistance and building international pressure, especially among tech-savvy students. Students at the elite Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) were the first to organize protests, breaking a decades-long drought on student activism in the country.

Aasim Sajjad, who teaches both at LUMS (a private facility) and a large public university (Qaid-e-Azam in Islamabad), thought that one reason that LUMS students mobilized so quickly was due to their access to technology. He noted the impacts of the digital divide when comparing his mostly wealthy LUMS students, who are weaned on computers, to his public university students, many of whom haven’t had the luxury of using a computer before university.

Several LUMS students I interviewed spoke with the giddiness of those who have only recently discovered their power. Their sentences were peppered with the parlance of blackberries, blogs, facebook and flickr. A senior named Ayesha described how SMS’s spread faster than wildfire across the campus, announcing and coordinating meetings and rallies.

Photos of a favourite professor being arrested by police were circulated over the Internet, outraging previously apolitical students. Cricket star turned political party leader Imran Khan, who temporarily escaped arrest, issued YouTube appeals from hiding encouraging students to mobilize.

One student group is publishing a blog concerning the political situation, which has inspired students at other universities to protest. Students have also taken advantage of features such as I-Report on CNN, which allow users to upload eyewitness pictures and reports. Online coverage by international newspapers has bolstered the morale of those resisting.

Ayesha commented, “It’s been phenomenal, I don’t think any of this would have happened without our advancements in technology. The fact [is], Musharraf has not been able to stop our telecommunications services. Sure, there might be tapping going on, you can tap a phone line, but you can’t stop them from mass messaging an entire list of people.”

Although most agree that severing Internet service in Pakistan is easily within the regime’s power, thus far Pakistan’s wires have remained free and open except for a few incidents of cell phone disruptions in Islamabad. This stands in contrast to Burma, where the government first heavily censored and later shut down Internet access during a crackdown earlier this year.

Blogger Zaheer Alam Kidvai suspects that the economic fallout of cutting the Internet in Pakistan would be crippling since significant sectors of the Pakistani economy, such as foreign outsourcing and the banking sector, now rely on it. Some suspect that the regime’s unfamiliarity with the power of such tools has contributed to keeping Pakistan wired, while others argue that Musharraf is not threatened by the small, English-speaking elite’s access to information. Given that much of the resistance has thus far come from Pakistan’s intelligentsia, perhaps he should be more concerned.

Most young Pakistanis are new at using technology for political organizing; this is evidenced by the naiveté of the students I spoke to. While all were concerned about their phones being tapped, few were aware that Internet usage could also be monitored. Last week police produced a list of 15 students for arrest, including one I met with, based on pictures reportedly circulated on the Internet. But the students are learning as they go and now request that faces be blurred, or pose with placards masking them.

Despite the tremendous potential technology provides for coordinating resistance to repressive regimes, those with access to such tools represent a small minority of the country’s population. Internet access is currently available to only 7-9% of the population, and with the country’s abysmal literacy rate (around 50%) and relatively limited newspaper circulation, shutting down television stations (Geo, the most popular Urdu-language station was shut down this week) is still an effective method of controlling the flow of information.

While SMSing, blogging, and photo sharing hasn’t brought the Musharraf administration down yet, it certainly has been a powerful tool for those few who have access both to organize and to send information from Pakistan to the world. As Pakistan continues to be plagued by dictators and power-hungry civilian leaders interrupting its attempts at democratic process, one can find hope in the knowledge that next time a leader launches an unpopular coup, the people of Pakistan are likely to put up a formidable fight in this increasingly wired country.