Social media regulations: Government wants to silence dissenting voices: Speakers

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society while rejecting the newly-introduced social media rules and regulations have termed them as yet another effort to "silence the dissenting voices of journalists and a common man" and demanded the government to withdraw its decision and issue a coordinated policy for the purpose.

The demand was raised during a press briefing, organised by the PFUJ, Punjab Union of Journalists and civil society activists in collaboration with the Lahore Press Club on Monday. During the conference, the civil society activists including lawyers, social and digital media workers agreed to fully support the demands raised by the PFUJ. They warned that a countrywide strike will be observed if the government failed to withdraw its recently notified "Citizen Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020".

They were of the view that these rules were made merely to deprive a common person of his/her "right to freedom of expression", especially journalists who are criticizing the incumbent government for not fulfilling or backtracking from its promises which they had made with the people before coming into power.

PFUJ Secretary Finance Zulfiqar Ali Metu said they are holding meetings with all the relevant stakeholders for taking out rallies across the country. Although we appreciate the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan to take all the relevant stakeholders on board, but he has not issued a written order so far. These rules have created so many complexities for social media workers which need to be resolved, he added.

Imtiaz Alam, Secretary General for South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), said that Prime Minister Imran Khan should first pay attention towards the attitude and way of speaking of his cabinet members instead of regulating social media platforms. "Soon after coming into power, the PTI-led government introduced media curbs which resulted in the financial murder of journalists," he said, pointing out that such curbs were tantamount to silencing the "dissenting voices" that are questioning the performance of the incumbent government. According to Imtiaz, expression of views (including criticism) on social media is a legitimate right of everyone. We will never accept these rules and such efforts by the government will be foiled as we did before, he added.

Lahore Press Club President Arshad Ansari expressed that freedom of media and its workers remained an unfulfilled dream and there is a long history of state suppression. "In my opinion, media never got freedom in reality. But this government has caused irreparable losses not only to media houses but to the journalists as well. I believe that it's a planned move on the part of the government," he wondered. However, we always fought for the rights of the people and our community and will do so and even former military dictators could not silence us, added Arshad.

Former Supreme Court Bar Association Secretary Raja Zulqarnain claimed that the establishment is unfortunately not ready to give any right to the people right now. Explaining his argument, the advocate alleged that it was the establishment which ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, because it has a mindset to control every department. "It (establishment) often tries to pressurize courts to get "favorable decisions" and the case of Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court is the fresh example of it," he alleged, adding that there are a lot of judges who are being harassed just because they wanted give "independent judgments".