HRD Nighat Dad On Pakistan's Cyber-Crimes Bill
Terrorism is one of the most commonly invoked justifications for aggressive cybercrime laws. Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Kuwait, Kenya, the Philippines, Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have all seen recent proposals to curtail digital freedoms in the name of “security.” In Pakistan, the. Each has the potential to restrict freedoms and criminalize legitimate human rights defenders' online activity.
Originally introduced in January 2015, Pakistan's Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) was allegedly aimed at combatting digital crimes not currently punished by law in Pakistan – things like digital harassment, bank fraud, and stalking on social networks. But as highly politicised “anti-terrorist” rhetoric altered the drafting process, the bill ended up affording the government a massive body of unchecked surveillance and censorship powers.
Since the first draft of the bill was released, Pakistani human rights defenders and advocates of digital freedoms have been fighting to prevent what one computer crime expert, Zahid Jamil, called “the worst piece of cybercrime legislation in the world.” HRDs mobilised to arrange protests, letter writing campaigns, and international network of supporters to bring down the bill. In May 2016, the movement earned a major victory when key members of Pakistan's Senate promised to oppose the bill entirely.
The PECB was approved by the National Assembly of Pakistan in April 2016, but has yet to be voted on by the Senate. As the debate continues in the Senate Standing Committee about which components of the bill will become Pakistani law, human rights defender and founder of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, Nighat Dad, explains why the bill must be scrapped completely.
Nighat Dad for Front Line Defenders
Post-9/11 geopolitics have resulted in Pakistan being hit by a number of attacks, with terrorist organisations claiming responsibility. With each attack, the government of Pakistan, its security agencies and armed forces have sought to take measures to weaken the abilities of militants to commit further acts, or to limit their ability to plan and coordinate said attacks. This has led to the government ordering the complete shutting down of mobile services on some national and religious holidays – without the consent of mobile telecom companies – and the flourishing of security checkpoints near military areas, government installations, and foreign embassies and consulates across Pakistan. Nevertheless, this has not reduced the number of attacks, which continue to occur.
In December 2014, armed men linked to the Taliban attacked a school run by the Pakistan army in the city of Peshawar, killing 145 people – 132 of those were children. In the wake of this tragedy, the government of Pakistan established its National Action Plan (NAP): a nation-wide campaign at the state-level to combat terrorism and supporters of terrorism, as the government of Pakistan determines.
The NAP provides sweeping powers to the government of Pakistan’s security agencies and armed forces, in the name of tackling terrorism. One aspect of the NAP calls for a crackdown on hate speech in print and digital media, on the internet and social media. In January 2015 the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB), Pakistan’s proposed cyber-crime bill, was drafted, and aimed to tackle said hate speech and publication of what the government categorises as pro-terrorist messages.
In theory, the PECB was developed to tackle online harassment, forgery, malicious hacking, identity theft and cyberstalking. The reality, however, is that the government has provided overly broad definitions as to what constitutes terrorism or pro-terrorist messages, and has given itself very broad powers, something that may give people familiar with the American PATRIOT Act a sense of deja vu. The PECB, for example, does not protect the personal internet traffic data of Pakistani internet and mobile service users – on the contrary, section 29 of the PECB orders internet providers to store internet traffic data for 90 days when ordered; section 39 allows for cooperation with foreign governments without making any mention of the rights of Pakistani citizens.
Establishing anti-terror laws also ensures the ensnaring of online discourse that is not pro-terror, but is critical of the government and certain institutions – vital to a nation’s healthy discourse. In March 2016, a Pakistani citizen was given a 13 year prison sentence for posting “religiously offensive material” on Facebook. He was charged under Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws, but was tried in an anti-terrorism court. His was not the first case either: in 2015 two others were charged and sentenced in a similar manner, giving rise to concerns over the way that anti-terrorism courts – and legislation – is being used to hamper digital freedom of expression, rather than protect citizens.
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on the 'Cyber Crime Bill'
