Legislators urged to overhaul draconian cyber-crime bill
Alarmed by the draconian nature of a cyber-crime bill that a Pakistani parliamentary committee approved last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and its partner, Freedom Network, are calling for a complete overhaul of the bill before its final adoption and, to this end, are offering detailed recommendations.
if it considers it necessary in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality.For media laws expert Muhammad Aftab Alam, section 34, which mentions the article 19 of the Constitution is problematic : "using certain parts of any constitutional provision in any other statutory law without its specific context is against the spirit of the Constitution. It is therefore unconstitutional to leave this to a statutory body like PTA or its authorized officer to decide about the fundamental right of citizens and block or remove any information from any website." "Any government authority, including PTA, must not have any role in contents management by blocking a website or anything else. A broad-based representative civil society body with adequate authority/power should be mandated to do contents audit." Another section entitled “spoofing” would criminalize online satire, which would be punishable by three years in prison. Encryption software and the virtual private networks (VPNs) that many Pakistanis use to circumvent the blocking of YouTube and other websites could be rendered illegal. READ THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF RSF AND FREEDOM NETWORK (pdf)