FIA conducting inquiry into actresses’ complaints over defamatory content, SHC told

Karachi: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has been conducting an inquiry into defamatory content against actresses and some objectionable material has been blocked on social media sites.

An officer of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) made a submission to this effect before the Sindh High Court on Friday. Filing comments on petitions of television and film actresses Rabia Iqbal, popularly known as Kubra Khan, and Mehwish Hayat against scandalous and defamatory campaign against them and other actresses on social media, an FIA sub-inspector submitted that information about social media accounts involved in defamatory campaign had been given to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for blockage.

A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Omar Sial after taking the FIA official’s report on record adjourned the hearing for four weeks. Mehwish and Kubra had submitted in their petitions that a YouTuber who claimed himself as a rights activist and former army officer had made false allegations against four actresses of the media industry causing an affront to their modesty and dignity by alleging that they were used by intelligence agencies and establishment to lure politicians into compromising positions at safe houses.

The petitioners’ counsel had submitted that YouTuber Adil Farooq Raja later on uploaded another video where he clarified the issue and retracted from earlier version but by then the reputation of the actresses had been irreparably damaged on account of the various contents uploaded on social media sites and cyberspace.

The counsel submitted that the act of the YouTuber was cognisable under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016 and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was the designated agency to check such illegalities and pass orders to stop such transmissions and ensure removal of such content.

The SHC was requested to direct the PTA and FIA to take immediate action against perpetrators of the law. It is pertinent to mention that the PTA had earlier informed the high court that it had no jurisdiction to remove or block defamatory content after a high court judgment. The PTA director told the SHC that the Islamabad High Court had struck down the power of the PTA under the Section 20 of Peca with regard to removal of defamatory content.

The PTA submitted that if the universal resource locator (URL) was hosted on a secured platform, then administration of the website application concerned could be approached to remove the unlawful content. The authority requested the SHC to either issue specific direction to social media platforms for removal of the reported content or ask the petitioner to take up the matter directly with the social media platforms for redress of their grievances.

The PTA had also submitted that 42 links pertaining to the issue of Kubra had been processed, under which nine links/URLs had been blocked, 11 links had already been removed by the users and 17 links had no objectionable content, hence the petitioner may be advised to identify the particular content.

The PTA said it was pursuing the matter with social media platforms for removal of contents from three URLs.

On the matter of Mehwish, the PTA submitted that 75 links pertaining to her case had been processed for blocking under which three links/URLs had been blocked, five links had already been removed by the users and 18 links had no objectionable content, hence the petitioner may be advised to identify the particular content. The PTA said it was pursuing the matter with social media platforms for removal of contents from the remaining 49 URLs.