While hearing a plea filed for implementation of the IHC verdict in blasphemous material on social media case, the Islamabad High Court on Friday expressed annoyance over the government for its failure to remove profane material from social media.
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui heard the case and directed Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to send a letter along with a copy of the court's judgment to Twitter authorities to remove the blasphemous matter from its site, otherwise, the court will issue directions for blockage of Twitter in Pakistan.
Justice Siddiqui on March 31, 2017 had delivered the judgment and directed the government to stop blasphemous material on social media.
Petitioner Salman Shahid Advocate along with his counsel Tariq Asad Advocate appeared before the court while the representatives of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and Ministry of Information Technology were also present on this occasion.
Expressing his annoyance over the government's performance in this matter, Justice Siddiqui said that more than one year has passed when the court had announced its verdict but the government has failed to implement it.
He directed the government to write a letter to Twitter authorities over the issue and report back on the next hearing, saying that he would order social media sites to be blocked if offending contents remained online. He added that he could order to ban the site right now but at this, the politicians would object saying that such a move would affect their campaigns.
The IHC bench also took notice of alleged harassment of petitioner Salman Shahid and directed the Inspector General (IG) of Islamabad police to provide security to him. The court also asked the petitioner to file a separate petition in this connection.
Later, the court directed the government to implement court's verdict in blasphemous material on social media till August 7 and deferred hearing till then.
In the main petition, petitioner Salman Shahid through his counsel Muhammad Tariq Asad Advocate had been seeking blockaged of blasphemous pages on social media and directions for the government to initiate legal proceedings against the page administrators.
The case of blasphemy was heard and finally decided by Justice Siddiqui last year. In the detailed judgment issued in Urdu, the bench had said whenever law enforcement institutions/agencies receive a complaint about blasphemy, it is their duty to initiate immediate legal action and they have no jurisdiction to differentiate between a good and bad law. Every law in the books is alive and requires implementation.
Justice Siddiqui laid stress on the need to erect a firewall in the form of an institution whose primary duty is to safeguard the ideological frontiers of Pakistan and this institution may focus elements aiming sabotage in the country and hand them over for legal proceedings to be initiated against them.
In the judgment, the IHC bench had discussed in detail about freedom of expression that is conditional and on court's directions, the government published advertisements to make the public aware of those conditions.
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