Journalists, Opposition walk out of NA as controversial PECA amendments passed

Pakistan’s National Assembly has passed controversial amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), to which journalists and members of the opposition PTI party, who both walked out of the National Assembly, walked out in protest. These amendments to the PECA have been condemned since they were first leaked, not just as the overly broad language could be interpreted to further attack freedom of expression, but because drafts of the bill had not been shared or discussed with stakeholders, which has been heavily criticised by activists and journalists. The bill will now be sent to the Pakistani Senate for a final approval.

The government has for several months claimed that the new provisions are necessary to tackle “fake news” or disinformation, with people accused of such to be “punished with imprisonment which may extend upto three years or with fine which may extend to Rs2m or with both.”

In addition to proposing the creation of a Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority (SMPRA), the amendments have expanded the definition of “social media platforms” to include the “tools” or software used to access said platforms. This expansion of the definition of “social media platforms”, even before the bill’s passing, was widely regarded as a vehicle to provide legal cover to future attempts to ban “unregistered” local VPNs – a legal opinion by the Ministry of Law had thwarted previous VPN ban attempts.

Nighat Dad, Digital Rights Foundation’s Executive Director, said that the passing of the amendments came as a “shock”, and that civil society organisations and other stakeholders had not been shown any drafts, with the result that the final version “suddenly came out of nowhere”. In addition to remarking that the bill should not have been passed owing to the “broad and ambiguous” powers it gave to authorities – already a serious  and ongoing concern about the PECA – Ms. Dad also pointed out its definitions concerning “false and fake information” were suspect – notable given that global authorities have not been able to provide consistent and universally applicable definitions themselves.