Criminalising dissent

Back when the PML-N had backed the passage of the PECA bill in 2016, critics had warned that it would usher in a new era of clampdowns on free speech. The problems with the bill were legion, starting with the secrecy with which it was introduced, allowing little input from those who are most likely to be affected by it. The end process was a law which left far too much open to the interpretation of the authorities and which could end up criminalising political dissent in cyberspace. This is exactly what has happened, with the PTI – for all its pre-power pretensions of upholding freedom of speech and expression – making an already bad law even worse with the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act (Peca) Ordinance 2022 promulgated by President Arif Alvi. Primarily against social media content, the new amendment has made online defamation a cognizable and non-bailable offence, the PTI government emerging as an advocate of criminalising ‘defamation’. Under the amendment, any person or institution guilty of defamation can be imprisoned for five years rather than the three years provided for under the previous act and ‘fake’ news has been declared a non-bailable offence in the ordinance. It is of course significant that the changes in the law were made through ordinance rather than going through the usual process of parliamentary debate and discussion.

The promulgation of this ordinance is ill-advised and uncalled for, especially at a time when the legality of PECA’s Section 20 is already under examination before the Islamabad High Court. Up until now, the complaints of people other than the aggrieved persons did not carry much weight as the Islamabad High Court had made it clear that nobody except the aggrieved person’ could file a complaint against defamation. Now an entirely new legal scenario will emerge in which any person or institution will be able file a defamation case, and there will be no need for the aggrieved person to do so. The amended Peca has extended the definition of ‘person’ who can seek relief to government departments, the judiciary, and the military. This is a fairly dangerous step as it will allow nearly all government and state institutions to target any individual who may raise a question or two about their performance.

There has been immediate reaction to the ordinance. The Joint Action Committee for the media, made up of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, the PFUJ, and the Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors, has condemned the change in law and has said it will challenge it in all possible legal ways. On Monday, the JAC walked out of the meeting with the information ministry and announced that there will be no discussions till the draconian amendments are reversed. It is unfortunate that, rather than facilitating free media – digital, electronic, and print – the government appears to be bent upon damaging freedom of expression in the country under the guise of ‘reforms in the media’. In a country where information is tightly controlled, the relative freedom on social media gives a voice to those who would otherwise not be heard. But the state seems convinced that it has the right to determine what citizens see, hear and read over social media. This sort of heavy hand of the state, which uses any and all excuses – morality, ethics, religion, 'decency' and now ‘defamation’ – for its efforts at censorship will only lead us down a dangerous path of complete conformity of narrative and crackdown on any kind of dissenting thought. The nanny state we live in has also taken it upon itself to decree which parts of the country even get access to the internet. Such dangerously oppressive steps only lead us to wonder what use 'freedom' is if it remains shackled to the whims and fancies of a few.