The government has revealed that terrorist organisations are operating around 3,000 websites to promote their agenda in the country.
This was disclosed by PML-N lawmaker Tahir Iqbal during the meeting of the sub-committee of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication.
The committee met on Thursday to re-examine the proposals received on the ‘Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2015’ at the Parliament House earlier in the day.
Iqbal said that the government wants to finalise the ‘Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2015’ as soon as possible, since it was demanded by law enforcement agencies to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) in its accordance.
Members of the NA sub-committee discussed several offences and punishments one by one which were severely criticised by the opposition members in the committee, lawyers, NGO’s and members of human rights organisations.
The participants discussed the offences and punishments included in the ‘Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2015’ including glorification of an offence and hate speech, unauthorised use of identity information, unauthorised interception, offences against dignity of natural person, cyber stalking, spamming, spoofing, retention of traffic data, power to manage intelligence and issue directions for removal or blocking access to any intelligence through any information system.
PPP lawmaker Shazia Marri and PML-N legislator Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari — who once held the portfolio of minister for information technology — expressed their concerns on the offences and punishments cited during the meeting.
“It is the responsibility of the committee members to take each clause of the bill seriously,” said Marri.
She also asked the representatives of the Ministry of Information Technology to review the punishment on cyber stalking.
“You don’t need to be emotional if you are making a law,” Marri told the members of the committee.
The PPP lawmaker also raised objections on the language used in the Bill.
Leghari asked the convener of the sub-committee to call another meeting next week to discuss the clauses of the Bill one by one with the officials of the ministry of IT, Law, and the representatives FIA and intelligence agencies.
