It is a chore to fight for your digital space in Pakistan with restrictive laws and regulatory bodies that continue to be proposed, enacted, tailored and then altered again and again in a confusing cycle of what feels like a formulated control over citizens through technology, inverting all ideas of the internet serving as a means of liberation and free speech.
A few distinct developments have taken place so far this year critically impacting the state of digital rights in Pakistan and calling into question yet again the lengths to which the state is willing to curb free speech and access to digital spaces under the guise of protection and security of citizens and the country.
The ban on X
Pakistanis have been locked out of X (formerly Twitter) since February 17 of this year unless they use a virtual private network (VPN). This happened following former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaquat Chattha’s accusation against the chief election commissioner and chief justice of Pakistan of being involved in rigging the February 8 general elections.
But this rigmarole of X being blocked was kept under wraps by the government for several weeks, with Information Minister Atta Tarar conveniently claiming it was working. Later, however, Tarar, in an interview with World Echo News, backtracked and said the social media platform was “already banned when we came into government”.
“There is no official notification for it but obviously, everyone can see that its signal and frequency are not working as normal and it is being used through virtual private networks,” he had said. “This is correct.”
On March 13, 2024, a statement was issued on behalf of Pakistani civil society expressing serious concern over the increasing instances of internet shutdowns and social media platform blocking in the lead-up to and following the general elections.
The statement said such actions “not only infringe upon the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and access to information but also set a troubling precedent of throttling genuine political discourse, including plurality of voices in the country”.
It called the blocking of X a “sobering illustration of growing digital censorship” and rebuked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for its silence over the matter, saying that it was alarming that PTA had not provided any justification for acting beyond its mandate by blocking an entire internet platform.
“The absence of transparency in the decision-making processes surrounding network shutdowns and platform blocking and complete disregard for any accountability has resulted in an obvious erosion of trust between the state and its citizens. We are also dismayed by reports of throttling of VPNs, undermining people’s access to information and right to privacy,” the statement, with over 75 signatories, read.
Civil society put forth a set of demands to the government and public bodies: immediately unblock X in Pakistan; repeal sections of the law such as Section 37 of PECA that enable censorship and violate Article 19 right to freedom of speech and press freedom and Article 19-A right of access to information; act with transparency on decisions that impact the free use of the internet, including for political and economic purposes; issue statement of clarification, outlining the reasons and legal basis for the blocking of X; avoid future actions that obstruct the free flow of information and adversely affect political discourse within the countries and take back all legislative proposals expanding control and censorship over the internet including the E-Safety Bill from the previous government’s tenure should not be revived and abide by Pakistan’s commitments to uphold freedom of expression and right to access to information under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Then on March 20, the PTA submitted a notification issued by a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officer to block access to X. Simultaneously, this ban on X was being challenged in the Sindh High Court (SHC).
The ban was in place to uphold “national security” and due to X’s refusal to accede to requests and comply with the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021, as per the interior ministry in a response submitted before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on April 17. Meanwhile, government officials continued using VPNs to post updates on X.
The SHC even directed the government to either justify the ban on X or withdraw its February 17 letter directing telecom regulator PTA to ban the site. But nothing came of it.
In August, the PTA chairman had said it was prepared to lift the ban on X when the government requested it. A few days later, Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari claimed the ban might be lifted if social media rules and regulations were framed.
In September, a PTA lawyer claimed in court that the telecom regulator had withdrawn its notification banning X. He made the claim during an SHC hearing on a set of petitions filed against the suspension of mobile and internet services and the ban on X since February.
Two lawyers were representing the PTA and they made conflicting statements. When the petitioners’ lawyer, Abdul Moiz Jaferii, pointed out that X was still inaccessible, the court asked the PTA lawyer if withdrawing the notification meant that access to X had been restored.
In response, the second PTA lawyer said he had “no knowledge” about the notification’s withdrawal.
The judges remarked that PTA had engaged separate lawyers for each petition, and surprisingly, one of them was informed about the notification’s withdrawal while the other was clueless.
Later in the month, the PTA clarified its position and admitted that the statement about the withdrawal of the interior ministry’s notification in the X suspension case was “incorrect”.
Of data localisation and personal protection
Meanwhile, the government also unveiled grand plans for data localisation reflected in its under consultation Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, which has been heavily opposed by digital rights activists, business and civil society.
The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), comprising global digital media giants, expressed serious concern over the possible enactment of the Personal Data Protection Bill based on its May 2023 draft. The body raised several questions over data localisation, arguing that it can lead to lower productivity, slower growth and reduced employment.
It was estimated, in a report called Data Localisation in Pakistan, published early August, that labour productivity would decline by 4.7% in 2025 if the Personal Data Protection Bill was enacted in 2024. This could roughly be calculated in dollar terms to a GDP loss of $16.5 billion in the following year after enactment.
The report noted that the current policy and regulatory landscape in Pakistan required some data localisation, but that there was room in the policy landscape for such measures to be further tightened. It argued that cloud services established locally, whether by government agencies or private sectors, could not match the security and efficiency of global players like Google and Amazon.
The AIC’s report also highlighted that data localisation could have consequences for businesses, and consequently, on the economy. Further, concerns were raised over implications on cybersecurity if data localisation was required.
The AIC report recommended against mandatory data localisation, arguing it would not attract global players to the Pakistani market. Instead, it called for more open and transparent laws to report data breaches.
The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency
In May alone, the government made two swift moves to lay foundation blocks for more control of digital spaces. It constituted the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) and a Digital Rights Protection Authority (DRPA) was proposed under which NCCIA was to operate.
The NCCIA was introduced under Section 51 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016. The establishment of this new national agency meant the cybercrime wing of the FIA would cease to exist. The fresh agency’s purpose – tackling the increase in cybercrime in Pakistan such as hacking, online fraud, harassment and cyberbullying. But experts were not too pleased. They feared that in the haste to up its cyber protection, the government compromised every citizen’s right to privacy.
According to a notification issued by the information ministry, all existing personnel, assets, liabilities, rights, obligations, privileges, inquiries and investigations related to the FIA’s “defunct” cybercrime wing would stand transferred to the NCCIA.
However, the notification said that existing personnel of the FIA cybercrime wing would continue to perform their duties for another year until the appointment of staff in the NCCIA.
According to the structure laid out by the government, the NCCIA was to be headed by a director-general, chosen by the federal government to serve a two-year term. The candidate would have to have “not less than 15 years of experience” in the fields of computer science, digital forensics, cyber technology, law, public administration, information technology, telecommunication or related fields to enable him to deal with offences under PECA, as per the government’s notification.
The notification said the NCCIA chief would exercise the powers of an inspector-general of police while the agency’s affairs related to the federal government’s business would be allocated to the interior division.
Before the NCCIA was set up, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar said the authority was to “safeguard the digital rights of people” and “counter propaganda and rumours on social media”, as per a news report in Dawn.
In November, Bolo Bhi Co-Founder Farieha Aziz gave an update on the status of the NCCIA. “We’ve heard nothing about the operationalisation of NCCIA. Nobody knows anything. FIA is still proceeding and appearing in court for all cases, whereas it was supposed to be defunct,” she said, adding that convoluted language has been used by the government as it said the FIA’s cybercrime wing will cease to exist, but then the SRO also says that for one year on deputation for NCCIA, the wing will continue its functions.
Digital rights advocate Yasal Munim called the creation of NCCIA a ploy by the government to rebrand its highly criticised cybercrime wing of the FIA. “It’s led to more questions than reassurances [on cyber protection],” she said.
“The inefficiency and incompetence of the FIA’s cybercrime wing in handling Peca cases is well documented. The harassment of survivors, and leakage of their personal data has repeatedly been criticised. But to handle the unprofessional attitude of an agency, do you make it go defunct and make a new authority? An authority about who’s power we are unclear about,” Munim, who is also a senior programme manager at Media Matters for Democracy, said and raised concerns over the lack of clarity on the NCCIA’s structure and future of the current FIA employees.
Zainab Durrani, who is also a digital rights activist, meanwhile, said the NCCIA announcement seemed like a gloss-over. Currently working for Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), Durrani said the need of the hour was to strengthen the existing law enforcement agencies and reinforce its capabilities, to increase the sensitivity of staff, especially those acting as first responders and those dealing with sensitive data being submitted by those aggrieved, as part of the evidence requirements.
“Not only does this move feel like a shifting of focus, but it will also only worsen the efficacy of delivering remedies to those plagued by online harms. Cross-over of jurisdiction and the surrounding ambiguity, waste of resources and cost to the people as well as lack of clarity on status of existing cases are all reasons why this is not a welcome move,” she told DRM.
Chipping in on the debate over the need for bodies such as the NCCIA and DRPA, lawyer Ali Javed Darugar said it seemed that the government was acting out of a need to be more “empowered” for its own needs to crack down against online dissent as opposed to addressing its obligation to act against illegal online activity, such as child pornography, harassment against women etc. “It is very clear they are not really concerned.
He called for a desperate need to invest in infrastructure, increase resources and then make sure those resources are used for the right ends and not for a “crusade against government critics”. He gave an example of the severe shortage of staff in FIA’s cybercrime wing in Lahore, sharing that it employed hardly 10-15 people.
“There’s only so much that they can do,” he said.
In December, however, the NCCIA was disbanded by the government and the cybercrime wing of the FIA was reinstated.
The Digital Rights Protection Authority
Moving further, the Digital Rights Protection Authority – which aimed to replace all current social media regulatory bodies – was expected to take shape soon.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif set up a cabinet committee to review proposed amendments to PECA, in an apparent move to constitute DRPA as a replacement to PECA. But no one really seemed to know what else was happening with DRPA.
Digital rights experts Farieha Aziz, Yasal Munim, and Zainab Durrani expressed a stark confusion over the looming idea of a new digital rights authority.
Lamenting that other than limited content in news reports, Aziz said there was no concrete information available on the DRPA. “We’ve not even seen a draft,” the journalist said.
Durrani, too, shared similar thoughts saying that the DRPA came through with no real consultative process addressing and accommodating the necessary feedback of stakeholders.
“Digital regulation needs to be approached with a larger picture POV, not just ad hoc solutions resembling a game of whac-a-mole that end up impacting not just human rights but the fledgling digital economy of the country,” she opined.
“Just because you put ‘protection’ in its [DRPA] name doesn’t mean that it will be used to protect the citizens. At this point, the government has become quite good with optics and using a lens of protection to pass regressive and stringent laws,” Munim said, questioning the transparency of the whole process.
“We don’t know many details about the scope, agenda, function and ambit of the authority. There are concerns about the government giving it the same power envisioned under the E-safety bill, requiring Big Tech companies to register in Pakistan and store their data locally. Who will head DRPA? Barely any information is available,” she said, giving an example of the government not sharing drafts of the data protection and E-Safety bills last year till cabinet okayed them.
The Punjab Defamation Act, 2024
Adding to the concoction of controlling decisions, in June, the Punjab government brought the Punjab Defamation Act, 2024. The defamation law was passed despite concerns from journalists, human rights organisations, and opposition lawmakers.
The law, which replaces Punjab’s Defamation Ordinance, 2002 and loosely defines “defamation” and “broadcasting” to include social media platforms has been challenged in court by journalists.
This new defamation law gives claimants a free hand to initiate legal action “without proof of actual damage or loss”. Penalties range from Rs3 million to punitive damages 10 times that amount. Tribunals may also order defendants to tender an unconditional apology or issue a directive to suspend or block the social media account or website where the alleged defamatory content was disseminated.
Extending applicability of defamation laws to institutions instead of sticking to protection of individuals has been interpreted by legal experts as an assault on the right of freedom of expression and free speech.
Provisions of the new bill tabled in Punjab included a definition of constitutional office, which was defined to include the President, the Prime Minister, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, etc. In cases where a constitutional office holder files a claim, there is a special procedure – a special single bench of the Lahore High Court will hear claims filed by constitutional office holders and there is also a special exception in that constitutional office holders will not have to appear during the defamation proceedings. Essentially what this means is that if the COAS or CJP or President or PM file a defamation claim against a civilian, not only would there be a separate procedure, but they would also not need to appear for the proceedings.
No justification has been provided for this distinct separate procedure, experts have noted, saying that there must be equality before the law and that if public officials start suing citizens for defamation, they should be required to appear.
Lawyer Rida Hosain, in a crisp explainer on the defamation law and its anomalies on Dawn News English series ‘Case in Point’, noted that when it comes to public officials, there should be a high standard in defamation claims and citizens must be able to speak freely and without fear of the threat of a lawsuit when it comes to public interest and political matters. She highlighted that there is a real risk that this new law could potentially be used by public officials to shield themselves from criticism and to threaten citizens who are critical with a defamation lawsuit.
The law states that no one will be allowed to comment or make a statement on pending proceedings, which Hosain labelled as a “gag order” and said this blanket prohibition is “absurd and disproportionate”. She noted that the law also excludes the applicability of the rules of evidence, the Qanun-e-Shahadat, and hence said it is not clear how the courts and tribunals will decide on matters such as admissibility of evidence.
The government has also included itself in the process of appointment of tribunal members, which Hosain said is problematic as government representatives are the accused in certain cases and so such inclusion would raise a question on the independence and impartiality of a tribunal.
The penalties introduced in the law are also disproportionate. One of the penalties is that the social media account of a citizen can be suspended in defamation claims. It does not penalise just the defamatory content, but the entire account of an individual.
Digital and human rights experts, lawyers and analysts are majorly lobbying for Pakistan to improve the civil and criminal defamation laws it already has, instead of implementing newer, oppressive laws.
It is expected that this new defamation law will be used as a weapon by the government to silence any critical discourse and dissent.
Lawyer Ali Javed Darugar pointed out to DRM that the defamation law is technically not enforceable as the tribunals have yet to be notified.
He said defamation is a serious concern and this new law has raised the cost of defamation and pointed out two of its major flaws: the media gag on covering the defamation proceedings and the minimum penalty being set at a high figure of Rs3 million. He called the media gag unconstitutional and said the penalty amount should not be more than Rs1 million.
Furthermore, DRF joined over 80 civil society organisations and journalists in rejecting the defamation bill, calling it a “gross infringement on the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and press freedom”.
In the joint statement, it was urged the Punjab government heed the voices of civil society and stakeholders and reverse an effort to pass “another regressive legislation akin to PECA”.
The bill’s “explicit” mandate of safeguarding “public officials” against defamation was labelled as being “nothing short of an authoritarian manoeuvre designed to shield those in power from accountability and scrutiny”. “By replacing district courts with tribunals, the bill opens the door for undue interference,” the statement read.
The Lawful Intercept Management System
Back-to-back jarring developments came to light in July, starting with the news that telecom companies nationwide had been operating a mass surveillance mechanism, enabling the interception of telecom customers’ data without regulatory mechanisms or legal procedures on orders of the PTA.
It was learnt, during court hearings relating to a case on illegal surveillance of former prime minister Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, that this surveillance system, called the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS), granted telecom companies access to private messages, video/audio content, call records, and web browsing histories of four million citizens. According to court documents, this system was used by “designated agencies” for surveillance.
A series of several audio clips, including that of Khan and his wife, were leaked on social media, in the lead up to February 8 elections.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) temporarily barred telecom companies from letting LIMS access their networks or from procuring consumer data. It had told PTA to submit a sealed report detailing how LIMS was procured and installed in breach of the provisions of the Telecom Act and the Investigation for Fair Trial Act, 2013, and how it was managed and the entities and the individuals who have, and have had, access to it.
Meanwhile, digital rights experts were worried about the harmful impact of an unregulated mass surveillance system
“LIMS was exposed by the valiant efforts of Justice Babar Sattar. It is anything but lawful, said Umer Ijaz Gilani,” an advocate in the Supreme Court.
“For there to be a system as invasive as LIMS and for it to not even be in public consciousness till a court order talks about it is as far from an egalitarian and just society as we can get. This blatant disregard for the social contract between state and citizen only serves as a hallmark of devolution,” Durrani shared.
Unbridled surveillance
Following the IHC’s orders, the federal government, within a week, formally authorised in the “interest of national security” the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) to intercept calls and text messages of citizens under section 51 of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, 1996.
The controversial decision kickstarted a debate among opposition leaders, citizens, and digital rights activists on social media, who all argued that it violates citizens’ constitutional rights under Article 4.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) condemned the move and said it was in flagrant violation of constitutionally protected rights.
The PTA also proposed a mandatory local registration for over-the-top (OTT) platforms in July. Under PTA’s proposed framework, services like YouTube, Netflix, WhatsApp, Facebook, and X (Twitter) would need to register locally for a period of 15 years. PTA then went ahead and announced “whitelisting” VPNs in August.
Lawyer Darugar called PTA’s moves a horrible idea. “In the regulation of free speech, one of the fundamental things is you regulate after the fact, which means if someone says something bad, you say it illegal after they’ve said it and then you penalise. The entire attempt of the government is that we have a firewall under which we can filter what is allowed and what is not and it does not have that right, constitutionally and otherwise,” he said.
He said the state’s reliability now is under question. “Our constitutional framework is very clear – you must protect freedom of expression. The government doesn’t have the right to prejudge what content can be allowed and what cannot”.
On the issue of the firewall, he said the fact that PTA has not come clean on what is happening and what the exact filtration mechanism is just further augments the argument that their intention is essentially to crack down on political critics. “This doesn’t seem like an attempt to sanitise the digital space in a manner that is transparent and clean and constitutional,” he said.
He said the government already has print media and TV channels under its control. The digital space is the last frontier that’s bothering them, he said, opining that control of the digital space would lead to censorship to a degree that would be draconian.
Slow or no internet, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and other social media apps has gradually become a norm this past year in Pakistan with concerns mounting about excessive monitoring by the government via the mysterious national firewall.
Internet users across the country are sick of tweaking their internet use to accommodate for silly problems like not being able to send voice notes, WhatsApp media not downloading at random times of day, slow browsing etc.
Millions of users have been impacted, businesses have been disrupted and there is nationwide worry and frustration with some kind of outage reported regularly on outage tracking website Downdetector.
But despite the obvious interference of the government, State Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja, has denied claims that the government has any role to play when it comes to low internet speeds or blocked services. Rather, she blamed the recent disruptions on the increased use of VPNs in a statement during a press conference in August.
Repeated attempts were made to get PTA’s version, but DRM received no response.
‘Digital terrorism’
Amidst this whole saga of new laws, internet shutdowns, WhatsApp and social media interruptions, and overall tight grip on freedom of expression, the government and state authorities, somewhere along the road, decided that the terrible state of security affairs in the country had quite a bit to do with the internet or what they labelled as “digital terrorism” – a brand new term coined to target, rights activists believe, political actors, and civilians rebelling online against suffocating developments in Pakistan’s digital media landscape.
Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir, during Pakistan’s 77th Independence Day at the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad in August, had warned that digital terrorism was being used to spread “anarchy and false information” against the armed forces. He had said digital terrorism aims to divide state institutions and citizens.
Earlier, on August 5, at a press talk in Rawalpindi, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry had said not enough was being done against “digital terrorism” under the law, allowing fake news and propaganda to spread in the country. The military’s spokesperson said the first line of defence against “digital terrorism” was the country’s law.
To be clear, Pakistan’s legal framework does not include terms like “digital terrorism” or “digital terrorists”. PECA defines cyberterrorism, but the scope of what is cyberterrorism under the current law surely does not cover internet censorship in the way it is being adopted by the Pakistani authorities under the label of digital terrorism.
“The government is using this term as a tool to control online speech and silence those who criticise the government, instead of dealing with real terrorist threats,” Haroon Baloch, a digital rights activist, told VOA News.
Spike in cyber harassment, gendered disinformation
Let’s not forget the dangerous spike in cyber harassment of women and gendered disinformation faced by women in journalism, politics, showbiz and other prominent professions as press freedom continues to condense. Doctored images and videos created using generative artificial intelligence tools, private information being leaked online and sexist, misogynistic and sexualised gendered attacks are just some of the obstacles women are facing now more than before.
From the bizarre case of a Karachi man blackmailing his wife with her private pictures and then being sentenced to nine years in jail for it to vlogger Dr Omer Adil being arrested at least twice for making insulting comments first against news anchor Gharidah Farooqi and then against Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari, the frequency of cases where women are becoming a target of abuse, hate speech, threats and defamation online increased exponentially.
As per DRF’s Cyber Harassment Helpline Report for 2023, a total of 2,473 new complaints were received on the helpline with an average number of 206 new complaints received each month and February 2023 having the most complaints in the year.
More than 60 journalists and media practitioners across Pakistan strongly condemned the sexist statements made by Dr Adil against Farooqi and demanded full accountability beyond a public apology.
The Network of Women Journalists for Digital Rights (NWJDR), issued a statement and called the vlogger’s comments in an online programme by former anchorperson and vlogger Zohaib Saleem Butt against the journalist and other women working in the media Butt “condemnable”.
“The online vlog has been extremely triggering with the use of graphic language against women journalists in the country,” NWJDR said in its statement.
“The use of these sexist and abusive words for women working in the media have been repeatedly used by male journalists and colleagues in the past too,” NWJDR said, adding that time and again, women journalists have raised their concerns with relevant authorities and demanded justice; however, no punitive action is taken to provide them with protection.
NWJDR called on relevant government bodies, journalist protection organisations, and regional and national press clubs to “unequivocally condemn the use of such language against women in the media” and asked that they must “actively discourage its perpetuation through online content and vlogs and take punitive action against those disseminating this harmful content”.
Meanwhile, in September, Pakistani actor and model Hania Aamir fell victim to a deepfake created using AI.
In the video, a woman resembling Aamir could be seen. It was picked up by several social media pages and an entertainment site – all falsely identifying the woman in the video as Aamir. The actor, however, clarified that the viral video was not hers and expressed her frustration with the media for spreading misinformation, calling for better accountability.
Aamir’s statement highlighted the rising issue of deepfakes and the impact on public figures and it triggered a conversation about privacy and the need for regulatory frameworks to address the misuse of AI.
Need of the hour
All in all, things are looking quite grim and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the government’s new tricks of content blocking, surveillance, and filtering to essentially allow for digital controls in the country.
According to Aziz, the government was still obfuscating matters before parliamentary committees and courts. “They don’t feel accountable, and they feel like they can just pull the flag whenever they want, and nobody’s going to hold them to account for it, which is exactly what’s happening. We’re not getting the disclosure, not about the so-called firewall, or whatever deployment will happen, not about anything,” Aziz said.
Despite this though, she does believe that not all hope is lost. The good thing is, there’s a lot of attention: there’s media attention, it’s being picked up in the parliament, and committees, and it’s being challenged in courts. “Of course, I would like to believe that it does inch the discourse in a direction where you get something, but it’s still not affecting them, and stopping them from doing what they want to do,” she concluded.
Durrani said it is critical for there to be a shift in the approach employed by policymakers, explaining that there is a need to step back and identify the cracks but speak with those connected to the grassroots, to their communities, those servicing complaints or addressing issues outside of the governmental structure such as the civil society and the legal fraternity.
She also highlighted the need to equip those drafting, debating and legislating on these key matters with technical knowledge.
Advocate Gilani said the public outrage against internet slowdown and disruption has not yet been matched by a concomitant litigation effort. He said a class action lawsuit needs to be initiated on behalf of all those whose businesses and professions have suffered on account of tortious action by government authorities.