Parliament asked to walk the talk
Islamabad March 26, 2024: Whimsical and arbitrary shutdown of internet and a self serving state narrative of 5-G in the name of fake news have done incalculable damage to state and society requiring collective work by political parties, media and civil society to address them.
This was stated by President Human Rights Cell of PPP senator Farhatullah Babar at HRCP seminar on the right to freedom of online expression in Islamabad Tuesday afternoon.
Internet shut down on Feb 8 led people to believe that polls were manipulated and it plunged the country into one of its deepest political crises. Earlier repeated shutdowns to prevent an opposition political party from reaching out to its voters resulted in a shutdown of economic activities, banking and educational instructions to students, he said..
Much has been said about fake news and the so-called 5-G war to justify restrictions on people’s right to know. Fake news is a grim reality that needs to be tackled with seriousness but investigations must also be made into how mysterious state elements were also involved in what the Supreme Court has described as “nebulous tactics” in its verdict in the Faizabad dharna case.
He said that sometime back fake wikileaks were planted in national newspapers praising some Pak army generals and demonizing that of India. The fraud was however unearthed by a foreign newspaper, but no one knows who was behind planting fake Wikileaks.
Similarly, in April 2019, Facebook removed over one hundred pages, groups and accounts that were part of a network linked to employees of an official institution. Facebook said that although the people behind it tried to conceal their identities, its investigation unearthed their links.
There have also been mysterious audio/video leaks recently demonizing politicians and no one knows who was behind it. Instead a senior government functionary told the court that hacking of phones was a common technology accessible to anyone. We should beware of fake news planted whether by individuals or by the state itself, he said.
Yet a number of journalists and activists critical of state policies are made to endure coercive procedures under PECA law as in the case of Asad Toor ostensibly to fix fake news.
Like most other things allegations of poll rigging, the cipher case and the May 9 incident also are internet based. At the start of the session of the new National Assembly political leaders vowed to hold judicial investigations into these incidents lying at the root of current instability.
The Parliament should now walk the talk, he said.