PAKISTAN:
The president of PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said that the original draft of the recent amendments to the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Law (PECA) was very strict, but his party suggested many changes to dilute it, reports express news.
In an interview after heading to the Oxford union, the president of the PPP declared that the PPP has always been against the original draft of the Peca Law, and added that former Prime Minister Imran Khan was the first to prove such hard legislation.
The Government strengthened Peca with new amendments to address fake news and illegal online content. The proposed Electronic Crime Prevention Law introduced serious sanctions, including up to three years in prison and RS2 million fines due to misinformation diffusion.
Bilawal declared that the PCA law was not an ideal law, but it was significantly better than the initial version that was proposed. He added that the law had been improved after consultations. He said the original draft included even harder sanctions, as a 30 -year sentence.
“Peca’s original draft was very hard. Many amendments were made to the law only for the hard work and efforts of the PPP,” he said. He acknowledged that “Pakistan faces several challenges, since democracy is not strong in Pakistan,” he added.
He reiterated that the PPP played a role in improving the PCA law and guaranteed that democracy would not undermine. He also defended the 26th constitutional amendment, noting that although it had been modified from its original form, he still played a crucial role in strengthening democracy.
