KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the interior ministry and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to file their respective replies to a constitutional petition filed by civil rights campaigners against the alleged ongoing crackdown on social media activists under the garb of action against those who criticise national security agencies.

A division bench, headed by Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi, also put the federal government’s law officer on notice and adjourned the hearing to June 15.

The petition was filed jointly by Farieha Aziz, Zohra Yusuf, Afia Salam, Ziad Zafar, Ghazi Salahuddin, Nazim Haji, Uzma Noorani, Mahnaz Rahman and Jibran Nasir against the interior ministry and the FIA.

The petitioners, represented by barrister Salahuddin Ahmed, said they were aggrieved by the respondents’ attempts “to curb the fundamental right to free speech through, inter alia, unlawful detention and threats to and harassment of individuals”.

Court asks govt, FIA to file replies to rights campaigners’ petition

They submitted that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had on May 14 ordered the FIA to initiate action against persons running ‘anti-military’ campaigns on the internet.

“The minister claimed to have taken notice of online criticism of the armed forces following the announcement by the military’s media affairs wing of the withdrawal of a tweet published by the ISPR rejecting the inquiry report from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding a news report published [in] Dawn on alleged differences between the civilian government and the armed forces regarding counterterrorism strategies,” the petitioners said, adding: “Since then, the FIA has detained dozens of people involved in what it calls ‘an organised campaign’ against the country’s armed forces on social media.”

The civil rights campaigners informed the court that the respondents had not disclosed the legal basis for the arrest, detention and inquiry of individuals following its crackdown on online dissent.

“Criticism of the armed forces (even if unjustified or misguided) does not amount to a criminal offence under any law and is even otherwise protected under Article 19 of the Constitution”, they said, adding: “The over-enthusiasm of the respondents to curb ordinary citizen’s exercise of free speech is even more troubling when juxtaposed against their complete inaction against actual terrorist groups and proscribed organisations freely engaging in terrorist activities and propaganda on various social media.”

The petitioners requested the court to declare that criticism of the armed forces did not, by itself, amount to a criminal offence and couldn’t be subjected to any coercive action by the state and that Article 19 of the Constitution protected the freedom of expression and the right to criticise any branch of the government even if such criticism was unfounded or unwarranted and subject only to the specific exceptions mentioned in Article 19 itself.

They asked the court to restrain the respondents from carrying on investigation or inquiry or taking or threatening any coercive action against any person, including arrest, detention or seizure of property, merely on the basis of having criticised the armed forces.

They requested the court to direct the respondents to provide a complete list of the persons arrested in connection with the campaign against online criticism of the armed forces and the offences, if any, they had been charged with and the action, if any, taken against them.

Two weeks ago, the interior minister had said that unbridled freedom could not be acceptable to any civilised society. He said that 27 social media accounts had been identified for posting offensive material and six people were ‘interviewed’.

Chaudhry Nisar noted that many offensive comments regarding the armed forces had been posted on the social media over the past few weeks.

“On one hand, our armed forces and civil forces are sacrificing their lives and, on the other, they are being ridiculed on social media. So I directed the FIA to take action against elements behind such posts,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2017