Tania Aidrus – a former Google executive- was brought to Pakistan and launched with great fanfare as a new leader to take Pakistan into the digital age. Digital Pakistan is the new buzzword and it was hoped that with the induction of a high powered Google executive, Pakistan would formulate policies that would help it propel itself in the digital economy.
Sadly though there is only so much a person like her can do in a country where the state is obsessed with crushing dissent at all costs and thereby seized with the idea that information can be controlled in this day and age. The newly unveiled “Citizen Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020” (CP) slipped in secretly in January but notified on February 12 are just another case in point. This comes a century after the British imposed the notorious Press Act that had tried to but ultimately failed to control free press in the subcontinent. Yet the more things change the more they remain the same, principally the hubris of a government that seeks maximum control.
The idea behind the CP is a simple one. Force social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc to register in Pakistan. Suppose if they do not register? Are we to assume that these services would be blocked in Pakistan? All indications are that Facebook and Twitter etc will not submit to this regulation. It makes sense from their angle. Pakistan’s laws are not considered friendly for obvious reasons. That is not all. The spurious reporting carried out by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority against anyone who holds a dissenting point of view on any issue whatsoever makes these Social Media giants take a dim view of the people in charge in Pakistan. In this column I have mentioned how PTA tried unsuccessfully get Twitter to remove my verified account for what exactly? They did not say, the irony being that most of what my twitter comprises are quotes of the founding fa
ther of Pakistan. Faced with this generally unreasonable attitude of part of PTA, is it any wonder that Facebook and Twitter do not wish to incorporate in Pakistan.
During the YouTube case which I had the privilege of being the counsel on, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court had asked Google to inform the court on whether they would incorporate an office in Pakistan. Their reply was that there was no business case and the legislation in Pakistan did not afford due protection to the publisher.
No limitation on a fundamental right can be made through an SRO and even an act of Parliament can impose only reasonable restrictions
This was before the odious Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 was unveiled and before the current wave of censorship was unleashed. So to expect these companies to come and incorporate in Pakistan is an entirely misplaced optimism. So really there are only two outcomes. Either the government can insist on this spurious legislation and deprive the people of Pakistan of these social media tools thereby curbing their freedom of expression and speech or to withdraw it altogether.
This is just one of the issues with the legislation. Suppose if these companies did register in Pakistan, the rules require that these companies should provide data and information to the investigating agency as and when needed and that too in decrypted format.
Perhaps those who drafted these rules should have picked up the Constitution of Pakistan and referred to Article 14 therein which promises the right of privacy to every citizen. The objective, therefore, behind it is to intimidate the ordinary citizen and exercise a degree of control that borders on paranoia.
It emanates from this idea of “fifth generation warfare” which has been taken to mean that everyone who expresses a point of view contrary to the established state narrative is somehow on the payroll of the enemy. One does not discount the possibility of such foreign interference but who is going to draw the line? Will it remain limited to the idea of foreign interference? Will not some pious operative not turn his attention to religious minorities and persecute them?
Will the same pious operative not attack liberals, feminists, progressives and freethinkers for working against the “cultural values” which are in any event undefined. Where will this stop? Do we live in the 21st century or are we magically transported to the King Henry VIII’s England or Ferdinand and Isabella’s Spain? Will we have a new inquisition in this country? You are calling forth a flood.
CP is also a case of excessive delegation of legislation. As drafted it is a statute on its own going beyond a simple SRO. Since it restricts the fundamental right of expression and speech, it needed to have been passed by the legislature and not through a notification by the Federal Government. No limitation on a fundamental right can be made through an SRO and even an act of Parliament can impose only reasonable restrictions.
Of course these points of constitutional law seem to have evaded the draftsmen of CP completely. It is as if they are incapable of understanding the limits the Constitution places on their arbitrary exercise of executive power. Hopefully the superior judiciary in this country will strike down the CP and make it clear that only the constitutional way should prevail.
The writer is a freelance