Pakistan’s upper house of parliament passed a bill on Tuesday criminalizing the spread of online misinformation.
The bill was already passed in the National Assembly last week.
What do we know about the bill?
The law would target anyone who “intentionally disseminates” information they have “reason to believe to be false or fake and likely to cause or create a sense of fear, panic or disorder or unrest.”
It would allow authorities to imprison social media users for up to three years for spreading disinformation and stipulates fines of up to 2 million rupees ($7,121, €6,822).
The legislation would also create an agency with the power to immediately block content deemed “unlawful and offensive” from social media.
Pakistan’s media regulator blocked Wikipedia in 2023 over “blasphemous material,” but the ban was lifted days later at the request of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Journalists walk out from controversial vote
The approval of the bill was accompanied by a walkout of journalists from the Senate’s press gallery.
Asif Bashir Chaudhry, a member of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told the AFP news agency that journalists had felt betrayed by the government.
“We genuinely wanted a law against misinformation, but if it’s not being done through open discussion but rather through fear and coercion, we will challenge it on every available platform,” he said.
Members of the center-left Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP), which is part of the Senate’s ruling coalition, also walked out of the Tuesday vote, Pakistani media reported.
Khan’s PTI warns against social media bill
Shibli Faraz, who is the leader of the opposition in the Senate and a member of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), argued that the bill had been passed hastily and without consulting stakeholders.
He was cited by the AFP news agency as saying the bill was “highly undemocratic” and would lead to the targeting of PTI party activists.
Pakistani authorities imposed multiple internet shutdowns amid protests from supporters of the PTI, who have demanded Khan’s release and argued his graft conviction is political.
sdi/rmt (AP, AFP)
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