Farieha Aziz, director of 2016 Freedom of Expression Campaigning Award winner Bolo Bhi (Photo: Elina Kansikas for Index on Censorship)
The cyber crimes bill passed by Pakistan’s lower legislative chamber is unacceptable and needs major changes, Bolo Bhi told Index on Censorship.
Fareiah Aziz, director of Bolo Bhi, said the group is ready to pick up the fight against the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, which was passed by Pakistan’s National Assembly on Wednesday 13 April. The bill must now be approved by the senate.
“We need the senate to change the bill significantly, if not completely,” Aziz said. “A few amendments are not going to be enough.”
The bill, which stems from the 20-point National Action Plan against terrorism prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced after the Peshawar attack and was presented to the national assembly by an expert committee established by the standing committee for IT, has caused uproar in civil society for its restrictions of human rights and free speech.
According to Bolo Bhi, some of the major concerns are the criminalisation of political criticism and political expression; the overreaching and discretionary powers given to the media regulator; the harsh punishments and fines for hate speech; and the lack of protection for journalists and of adequately set procedures.
Additionally, the group has also lamented a critical lack of transparency in the drafting process, claiming the government deliberately avoided making the proposed text available to the public.
According to Dawn, the bill also shows a critical lack of IT expertise.
Aziz told Index on Censorship that Bolo Bhi expected the bill to be approved by the national assembly, and has been lobbying the senate since August 2015.
“We already have commitments from senators, including the chairman, who said very publicly in one of the sessions that this bill is not going to pass in its current version.”
“The senate is more balanced, and the opposition has the majority, whereas the government has a 2/3 majority in the national assembly,” she said.
However, Aziz warned the greatest risk is that senators settle for a few amendments to the bill instead of changing everything that needs changing.
“It’s the oldest trick in the book,” she said. “Make changes here and there, accept a few amendments, and then say that you’ve done what you could do. But that’s not going to be enough.
“We’ve seen this before with the introduction of military courts and the Protection of Pakistan Bill 2014. There was always an outcry by opposition parties, especially about the Protection of Pakistan Bill, but then they settled for a few amendments and all went through.”
Aziz said Bolo Bhi is already working to organise public and academic debate around the bill, and to make sure the senate has a clause by clause discussion.
Bolo Bhi, which means “speak up” in urdu, has been fighting the bill for over a year. They have been lobbying with members of the opposition and other organisations against the bill since then, shedding light on the legislation, organising public debates and creating a timeline tracking cybercrime legislation with information on every development.
Up to five year imprisonment, $95.000 fine or both for hate speech, or trying to create disputes and spread hatred on the basis of religion or sectarianism.
Up to five year imprisonment, $48.000 fine or both for transferring or copying of sensitive basic information.
Up to $480 fine for sending messages irritating to others or for marketing purposes. If the crime is repeated, the punishment would be three months imprisonment and a fine of up to $9.500.
Up to three year imprisonment and a fine of up to £4.800 for creating a website for negative purposes.
Up to one year imprisonment or a fine of up to $9.500 for forcing an individual for immoral activity, or publishing an individual’s picture without consent, sending obscene messages or unnecessary cyber interference.
Up to seven year imprisonment, a fine of $95.000 or both for interfering in sensitive data information systems.
Three month imprisonment or a $480 fine or both for accessing unauthorised data.
Three year imprisonment and a fine of up to $48.000 for obtaining information about an individual’s identification, selling the information or retaining it with self.
Up to three year imprisonment and a fine of up to $4.800 for issuing a sim card in an unauthorised manner.
Up to three year imprisonment and fine of up to $9.500 for making changes in a wireless set or a cell phone.
Up to three year imprisonment and a fine of up to $9.500 for spreading misinformation about an individual.
On 27 March, thousands gathered in Islamabad’s twin city Rawalpindi to commemorate the Chehlum of Mumtaz Qadri, marking 40 days since his death. Qadri was executed for the 2011 murder of the governor of the province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Many extremists in Pakistan welcomed the murder of Taseer and celebrated Qadri as a hero before and a martyr after his death.
Supporters of Qadri from all over the country were called on by two extremist parties, Sunni Tehreek (ST) and Tehreek-i-Labbaik ya Rasool (SAW), to march on the Parliament House in Islamabad, under heavy resistance of riot police and paramilitary forces.
In an attempt to hold back protesters, police fired tear gas into the crowds. When the protesters reached D-Chowk in the city’s Red Zone, the square in front of the Parliament House, the situation turned more violent as participants removed and torched containers and destroyed private and public property. Police officials later denied firing live rounds at protesters.
Around 1000 people were arrested and over a dozen injured. “We are considering imposing Anti-Terrorism Act Section 7 on these protesters”, City Police Officer Israr Ahmed Abbasi told Dawn Newspaper, referring to a law dealing with creating terror and violence in society. “A case has not been registered yet, but consultations with legal experts are underway.”
The protests were largely ignored by the media leading to a major lack of coverage. Media regulatory body Pemra warned channels to avoid coverage “driven by crass commercialisation like in India.”
At D-Chowk, nearly 2000 pro-Qadri protesters continued a sit-in, demanding the establishment of Shariah law, the release of arrested Sunni clerics and leaders, and a guaranty for the enforcement of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. They also insisted that the government should officially declare Mumtaz Qadri a martyr.
Protesters ended the sit-in after four days, claiming the government had agreed to their demands, but interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan later denied any deal had been made.
Simon Engelkes studied political science at Freie Universität Berlin and American University of Beirut, with a focus on armed conflict and political violence. He is currently working as a research intern with a think tank in Islamabad. He tweets @englks.
Since becoming a journalist almost 30 years ago, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has had to choose between his life and his career. Mir is now one of Pakistan’s best-known journalists, the host of Geo Television’s flagship political show Capital Talk. He also now lives under armed guard, recovering from yet another assassination attempt, with his family sent abroad for their safety.
“My family is not happy with me,” he told Index. “They think that my life is more important than the profession.” Mir does not agree.
“I think that if I leave Pakistan, it’s like I surrender, and I don’t want to surrender to the Taliban, I don’t want to surrender to the rogue elements in our intelligence agencies and the security agencies. I don’t want to surrender to the enemies of democracy.”
Mir became a journalist after his father, who himself taught journalism at the University of the Punjab, died in mysterious circumstances in 1987. Mir saw his career as a continuation of his father’s fight for democracy, human rights and minorities’ rights in Pakistan.
“When I decided to become a journalist, Pakistan was ruled by a military dictator,” Mir told Index. It was not long after he started at a small paper in Lahore that Mir first met the violent opposition to his reporting that would characterise his career and life.
“When I started facing trouble, I was not aware that I was touching some controversial subject,” he said. “I was only doing my job as a reporter.”
In 1990, Mir broke a story about the military establishment and the then-president trying to remove the democratically elected Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
“I was kidnapped by the intelligence agency and they tortured me and asked me to tell them who is my source.” Bhutto’s government was removed days later.
Fast forward 30 years and Mir is still reporting on issues many Pakistani journalists won’t touch.
His tireless and outspoken reporting has earned him enemies in Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani Taliban and local terrorist groups, and Pakistan’s political parties.
It has also earned him a lifetime of assassination attempts – the latest a near-fatal attack in 2014 which saw him shot six times as he drove to work – has left Mir living under constant protection. He is driven to and from work in a bulletproof vehicle, alternating between cell phones and residences, and away from his two children, who were sent abroad after a car they were riding in was attacked.
But, for Mir, reporting on these untouchable-topics is not a question. “Maybe it’s controversial for the others but it’s not controversial for me,” he says.
“If a military dictator is suspending the constitution of Pakistan which was approved by the elected parliament, and I, being a journalist and a TV anchor, am opposing that, for me it’s not controversial,” he says.
“And again, if some intelligence agency is trying to dictate me – you should report this and you should not report that – and if the religious extremists, the Taliban, they are issuing threats to women, they are bombing the girls’ schools, and I am criticising the Taliban. I don’t think that it’s controversial.”
Threats to his life intensified in late 2015, and under pressure from his family, Mir planned to take three months off-air.
“After one month, I realised that it’s too much, I have to come back.”
For Mir, if not for his family, his duty to Pakistan and to his colleagues, will always outweigh his own safety. The guilt he feels for those journalists who have died for their work is too great to ever allow him to stop, he says.
“There were some colleagues who used to come to me and take advice about what should we do because we are facing pressures. Should we continue our job as a journalist? I used to advise them, yes you must continue your job as a journalist, nothing bad will happen. But they were killed, they were kidnapped.”
“If I leave Pakistan today, on the pressure of my family, maybe I will leave a very safe life in London or in Berlin or in Paris or in any other country. But it will be very difficult for me to live a normal life, because the ghosts of my martyred friends, they will not allow me to have a comfortable sleep.”
Mir believes he is one of the lucky ones in Pakistan – he has survived. And life in Lahore is a lot easier for journalists than for those living outside the city, he says.
Although he sees media freedom in Pakistan getting worse, with pressures from the extremist forces and state agencies intensifying, his long-view is an uplifting one.
“The good thing is that the people, the majority of the people of Pakistan, the civil society, is the main source of our strength. If I am living in Pakistan, if I am surviving in Pakistan, it’s only because the common man is supporting me,” he said. “The common man believes in democracy, they don’t like extremist ideology, they don’t like dictatorship, they want rule of law. There is a ray of hope for me in Pakistan.”
Bolo Bhi, which means “speak up” in Urdu, is a non-profit run by a powerful all-female team, fighting for internet access, digital security and privacy in Pakistan and around the world. Founded in 2012 by Sana Saleem and Farieha Aziz, they have since fought tirelessly to challenge Pakistan’s increasingly pervasive internet censorship.
“In the year 2012 the government were trying to bring in a national URL filtering firewall along the lines of China,” Farieha Aziz told Index.
“Then came the YouTube ban in September 2012. We lead a campaign against that and got commitments from businesses around the world not to bid for the tender the government of Pakistan had floated.”
The team have now launched countless internet freedom programmes, published research papers, fought for gender-rights, government transparency, executed successful campaigns and run digital security training sessions all over Pakistan.
“In Pakistan the internet is an unlegislated space, so a lot of our work involves discussions law and policy, and the shape they should be taking and the shape they should not be taking,” says Aziz.
Their biggest fight to date has been taking on the draconian Prevention of Electronic Crimes (PEC) Bill. The proposed legislation includes the criminalisation of political criticism and political expression in the form of analysis, commentary, blogs and cartoons, caricatures, memes; “obscene” or “immoral” messages on social media; posting of photographs of anyone on Facebook or Instagram without their permission; and sending an email or message without the recipient’s permission.
“We were able to get a leaked copy [of the bill] and we went public and we started forming an alliance,” said Aziz. “Our part was really to get people on board and collect people to collectively resist the bill in its current form.”
At every stage of the bill’s dramatic progression, Bolo Bhi been tirelessly campaigning against and shedding light on the legislation, which would have otherwise been quietly passed. They have created a timeline tracking cybercrime legislation with information on every development.
They also organised a series of press conferences, media events and campaigns to raise public awareness about the bill, as well as facilitating a series of consultations on the proposed cybercrime law with activists, lawyers and technology experts.
“Over a period of a year from advocating, trying to get the media to talk about it, we saw that a lot of people, even citizens, were very concerned about it. Across the board this concern resonated and nobody wanted the bill in the form it existed. We thought it would pass in a month, but it’s been almost a year and it’s been held off.”
Last year they also took down Pakistan’s Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Evaluation of Websites, filing a petition in the Islamabad High Court challenging the legality of committee, which is responsible for all official decisions taken to block online content in Pakistan. After a court ruling in March 2015, the IMCEW was disbanded – a win for Bolo Bhi, until the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority was given powers for content management on internet. Bolo Bhi continue to fight against the restrictions.
As well as shaping the debate around internet freedom in Pakistan, Bolo Bhi campaigns tirelessly for women’s rights.
“Gender is an integral part of what we do at Bolo Bhi. Recently we’ve tackled acid crimes, which are particularly perpetrated against women. We launched a social media campaign but we’ve also worked with women’s groups.”
Freedom of expression in Pakistan is a complicated phrase, Aziz says. But Bolo Bhi’s work ensures it is not one that is left unexamined.
