Ensuring basic freedoms

If there is a single entity that scares the living daylights out of governments everywhere, it is the internet. Anarchic, largely unregulated, hugely powerful and influencing political and social attitudes the world over, it is the genie that was never anywhere near a bottle, never mind in one waiting to be let out. Pakistan, along with a raft of other countries that view the internet with a decidedly gelid eye, makes frequent interventions to limit access to it with varying degrees of success, the keyboard warriors generally finding a workaround within minutes of any block on access. Undeterred and determined to get legislation on the books that regulates and defines internet usage, the government has come up with the Cybercrime Bill, which it steamrollered through the National Assembly; and has now found itself before the sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications where it is getting something of a roasting.

The sub-committee on June 29 recommended that the government revisit a range of what it describes as “contentious clauses” and “take relevant stakeholders on board”. It is of note that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chose not to attend the sub-committee meeting. It is also of note that the Senate has of late been acting as a handbrake on some of the more dubious attempts to impose restrictive legislation by the current dispensation. Four sections of the Bill — 18, 21, 22 and 28 — are particularly contentious and have been debated in the lower house, but the Senate sub-committee has now asked stakeholders to present their proposed amendments in order that it can finalise its recommendations and present them at the next sitting of the Senate.

The Cybercrime Bill is little more than a Trojan Horse for a range of measures that, within the context of a poorly-drafted piece of legislation, is designed to give the government a variety of sticks with which to beat anybody and anything, including the print and electronic media as well as the many millions nowadays that use the internet, if they say or do anything that displeases the powers that be. Basic freedoms of speech are at hazard, and we support any and all methods by which they may be protected.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2016.

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