On Tuesday March 7, the Islamabad High Court took up the contempt petition filed by a man named Salman Shahid who wants a ban on social media pages allegedly uploading ‘blasphemous’ content. The court, headed by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, had on February 24 directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block sacrilegious pages as well.
Justice Siddiqui summoned Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for the hearing, urging the ministry to put blasphemers on the Exit Control List, which would prevent them from leaving the country.
In the immediate aftermath of the court’s call to action, the Islamabad police registered a case against the owners of the accused pages, the Senate approved a resolution demanding strict action and the Federal Investigation Agency published newspaper ads urging citizens to “help identify blasphemers on Facebook.”
In their statements, Interior Secretary Arif Ahmad Khan and PTA Chairman Syed Ismail Shah told the court that all possible action was being taken against blasphemous content on social media.
Both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan have urged officials to take strict action and said that social media might be banned altogether if the cited content isn’t removed. “We’ve already got many blasphemous pages banned by Facebook, but it takes time for them to process the request,” a PTA official says.
Another official from the Interior Ministry says that around 10% of the content still remains on Facebook, the rest has been removed in collaboration with the social media website.
Last year, Pakistan passed its Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), commonly known as the cybercrime law. It says that blasphemy cases will be adjudicated in accordance with the Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 295-C, which says: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.” It also says that the Federal Investigative Agency would file First Information Reports on cybercrimes.
On March 24, the FIA arrested two suspects from Karachi in connection with a social media blasphemy case; one of them was a man called Ayaz Nizami. In the immediate aftermath of the arrests, #HangAyazNizami started trending on Twitter in Pakistan. While FIA officials handling the case declined to comment considering the sensitivity of the matter, it has been confirmed that terrorism charges were added to the FIRs. “Charges of terrorism in the FIR are contrived and I say that in light of the past practice of the Islamabad police and Ministry of Interior,” says lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir. “For the Islamabad Police, a hate-filled sermon against Pakistani Shia Muslims by Abdul Aziz, who has links with terror outfits, is on the Fourth Schedule, has waged war against the State and threatened Pakistan with suicide bombers, is not an act of terror. I know because I have been battling the Islamabad Police for over a year in court to have an FIR registered against that sermon.”
The charges of terrorism against those accused of blasphemy were also mentioned by Justice Siddiqui during the hearing of the case. He maintained that “blasphemers are terrorists” and that “secular liberal extremists” are a bigger threat than Islamic extremists.
After the court’s verdict, the government approached Facebook to block social media pages accused of spreading blasphemous content, and provide their records. In response, Facebook expressed its desire to resolve the issue through bilateral dialogue, and said it would be sending a delegation to Pakistan. Farieha Aziz, a digital rights activist and director at Bolo Bhi, says Pakistan’s laws do not apply to Facebook, “however, compliance still takes place.”
“Government take-down requests, and law-enforcement requests (often requesting user data to investigate criminal cases), are usually directed towards Facebook,” she says. “The company then carries out what is called ‘due diligence’ and government/law-enforcement requests are assessed against applicable laws and their own guidelines.
“It boils down to governments and companies making their own determinations about what should be restricted or what data should be handed over,” she adds. “And that remains the biggest problem, because these decisions will then be driven by corporate interest or state interest—never public interest.”
A senior marketing executive of a leading clothing brand, who did not wish to be named given the sensitive controversy surrounding the subject, believes that considering the money involved, blocking Facebook should be completely out of the question. “Our company spends thousands of dollars in sponsored content on Facebook alone,” she says. “For the social media company, its users are the product that they sell to different firms via targeted marketing campaigns. Facebook is never going to take any action that renders its own product—30 million Pakistanis—useless.”
The Interior Ministry official hoped that Facebook would comply with government requests. “The secretary has already said during the hearing that blocking Facebook is not the solution, especially when almost 90% of the material has already been blocked,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get rid of the other 10% soon as well.”
Justice Siddiqui summoned Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for the hearing, urging the ministry to put blasphemers on the Exit Control List, which would prevent them from leaving the country.
In the immediate aftermath of the court’s call to action, the Islamabad police registered a case against the owners of the accused pages, the Senate approved a resolution demanding strict action and the Federal Investigation Agency published newspaper ads urging citizens to “help identify blasphemers on Facebook.”
In their statements, Interior Secretary Arif Ahmad Khan and PTA Chairman Syed Ismail Shah told the court that all possible action was being taken against blasphemous content on social media.
Government take-down requests, and law-enforcement requests (often requesting user data to investigate criminal cases), are usually directed towards Facebook. It does 'due diligence' and assesses requests against applicable laws and their own guidelines
Both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan have urged officials to take strict action and said that social media might be banned altogether if the cited content isn’t removed. “We’ve already got many blasphemous pages banned by Facebook, but it takes time for them to process the request,” a PTA official says.
Another official from the Interior Ministry says that around 10% of the content still remains on Facebook, the rest has been removed in collaboration with the social media website.
Last year, Pakistan passed its Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), commonly known as the cybercrime law. It says that blasphemy cases will be adjudicated in accordance with the Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 295-C, which says: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.” It also says that the Federal Investigative Agency would file First Information Reports on cybercrimes.
On March 24, the FIA arrested two suspects from Karachi in connection with a social media blasphemy case; one of them was a man called Ayaz Nizami. In the immediate aftermath of the arrests, #HangAyazNizami started trending on Twitter in Pakistan. While FIA officials handling the case declined to comment considering the sensitivity of the matter, it has been confirmed that terrorism charges were added to the FIRs. “Charges of terrorism in the FIR are contrived and I say that in light of the past practice of the Islamabad police and Ministry of Interior,” says lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir. “For the Islamabad Police, a hate-filled sermon against Pakistani Shia Muslims by Abdul Aziz, who has links with terror outfits, is on the Fourth Schedule, has waged war against the State and threatened Pakistan with suicide bombers, is not an act of terror. I know because I have been battling the Islamabad Police for over a year in court to have an FIR registered against that sermon.”
The charges of terrorism against those accused of blasphemy were also mentioned by Justice Siddiqui during the hearing of the case. He maintained that “blasphemers are terrorists” and that “secular liberal extremists” are a bigger threat than Islamic extremists.
After the court’s verdict, the government approached Facebook to block social media pages accused of spreading blasphemous content, and provide their records. In response, Facebook expressed its desire to resolve the issue through bilateral dialogue, and said it would be sending a delegation to Pakistan. Farieha Aziz, a digital rights activist and director at Bolo Bhi, says Pakistan’s laws do not apply to Facebook, “however, compliance still takes place.”
“Government take-down requests, and law-enforcement requests (often requesting user data to investigate criminal cases), are usually directed towards Facebook,” she says. “The company then carries out what is called ‘due diligence’ and government/law-enforcement requests are assessed against applicable laws and their own guidelines.
“It boils down to governments and companies making their own determinations about what should be restricted or what data should be handed over,” she adds. “And that remains the biggest problem, because these decisions will then be driven by corporate interest or state interest—never public interest.”
A senior marketing executive of a leading clothing brand, who did not wish to be named given the sensitive controversy surrounding the subject, believes that considering the money involved, blocking Facebook should be completely out of the question. “Our company spends thousands of dollars in sponsored content on Facebook alone,” she says. “For the social media company, its users are the product that they sell to different firms via targeted marketing campaigns. Facebook is never going to take any action that renders its own product—30 million Pakistanis—useless.”
The Interior Ministry official hoped that Facebook would comply with government requests. “The secretary has already said during the hearing that blocking Facebook is not the solution, especially when almost 90% of the material has already been blocked,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get rid of the other 10% soon as well.”