Trump’s new world

Rafia Zakaria

DAWN

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.


IT has probably been the busiest week President Donald Trump has ever had, and it has the whole world worried.

The Indians are worried about what the imminent slashing of H-1B visas and the elimination of birthright citizenship will have on their middle class, which exports tech talent to America.

The Chinese are worried about the 10 per cent tariffs that Trump is promising to impose on them. Canada is worried about strident statements about how Canadian goods will face tariffs to bring down the trade deficit with them.

Mexico is worried about the same thing, as well as Trump’s labelling the country as being “run by drug cartels” and the imminent deportation of millions of undocumented Mexicans from the United States.

The EU is worried about Trump’s statements regarding trade deficits, trade restrictions on European goods to match EU restrictions on US goods and Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for sustaining Nato or its defence promises.

Denmark is worried about losing Greenland and Panama is worried about losing the Panama Canal; both of which Trump has announced the US would like to take over (without ruling out the use of military force).

It is undoubtedly going to be a new world under Donald Trump. First among all of this are likely to be the enormous changes that will come about to US immigration policy. Indians have good cause to be worried.

Trump is not only promising to crack down on illegal immigration but also slowing down legal immigration to a trickle — something which will likely impact Indians, as India sends the most immigrants and workers to America from Asia. Indian newspapers have been dominated by coverage of the issue over the past week.

Many commentators have even expressed alarm regarding the change in the rule regarding birthright citizenship. Constitutionally, any child born in the territorial US automatically gets American citizenship.

However, an executive order signed by Trump this week wants to change this saying that it will not apply to children of those on non-immigrant visas (including student visas and work visas) or children of undocumented workers.

According to discussions in Indian newspapers, this would change the calculations of many in the Indian middle class who choose to avail these visas and then try to have children while they are in the US so that they will be American citizens.

Trump’s order changing the grounds for citizenship has been challenged in US federal court, with a judge temporarily blocking the order. In the meantime, even if the rule is not immediately implemented, it likely augurs a period of uncertainty concerning the measure.

Indians have good cause to be worried as India sends the most immigrants to the US from Asia.

Those who are in the US illegally face a difficult time ahead as well. This is true regardless of where they have immigrated from. This would include Pakistani citizens who are currently in the US.

Immigration raids that are supposed to begin this weekend are likely to be used to round up people in areas with heavy immigrant populations. Those who may fit this category should know that they do not have to answer any questions if they are approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers if they are not near or at the US border.

There is no duty to provide identification or documentation when approached in places that are not US border checkpoints unless there is probable cause that has led the agent to suspect that the person may be illegal.

Racial profiling of people is not an adequate basis for probable cause. Not offering up identification or answering questions is not in itself grounds for detaining any person who appears to be an immigrant.

Those who run businesses that employ people who may be undocumented can ask ICE officers for a judicial warrant if their place of business is targeted for a raid. They can also instruct their employees to refuse to show identification or proof of legal residence unless such a warrant has been produced.

It is not just that the US is shutting its borders to the world and to American citizenship but also to products. In a speech telecast at the Davos summit, Trump announced that he will reduce the corporate tax rate from 40pc under Biden to 15pc if businesses choose to manufacture their product in the US.

Interest rates are also likely to be slashed under Trump which may provide Americans — who listed inflation as one of their major reasons for dissatisfaction with the Biden administration — with some hope.

The focus on rejuvenating American manufacturing is geared to increasing job opportunities for Americans, particularly in the rust belt states that have experienced a downturn ever since manufacturing in the US began to be outsourced.

The US is the richest and largest economy in the world. The Trump administration is seeking to harness this power to bully other countries out of territory and resources.

Of course, the US has been doing this in places like the Middle East and South Asia since the beginning of this new millennium, but now it appears it is Western countries, like the EU states and others, who will face the brunt of American bullying. These countries were happy to look away from US overreach when it came to the ‘war on terror’, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now a new kind of US war has been launched, and its targets are countries who were spared in the last age of US power. It is these nations that are the targets of this new age of American overreach. They didn’t speak up when America did this to others and so the already bullied by America will have little to say now it is someone else’s turn.


rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2025

Climate Trumped?

Malik Amin Aslam Khan 

DAWN

The writer, a member of the governing board, SDPI, is a former minister of climate change.


THE inevitable has happened to a world which was bracing for the unpredictable. Trump 2.0 inauguration day was hyped with a flurry of executive orders — almost a fourth of them linked to climate change. The disturbing list includes reversing policies promoting electric vehicles, declaring an energy emergency, unleashing a new wave of oil and gas drilling while cancelling offshore wind power leases and for the second time in the last decade, announcing a US exit from the Paris climate agreement.

All these portend a precarious future for a world reeling under the effects of climate change. The science of climate change is clearer now than ever before, and just last month, leading climate scientists raised alarm bells as the world breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for the first time and 2024 was logged as the hottest year in recorded history. At the same time, the stark reality continues unabated with climate-triggered super floods, raging forest fires, unlivable temperatures and freak cyclonic storms forcibly gate-crashing the resilience of most countries.

Most importantly, the associated economic costs of this unleashed fury are following suit by burdening impacted countries, like Pakistan, with billions in unbearable climate damages.

Amidst this raging whirlpool of interlinked consequences, the politics around climate change has remained lethargic. Like Covid, it demands a concerted and coordinated global consensus. The Paris Climate Accords of 2015 garnered it around a bottom-up model with each of the 195 countries, including the US, ‘voluntarily’ contributing towards the goal of trying to keep the global temperature rise below the consequential threshold of 1.5°C. The consensus was built on trust and a promise of climate finance and the momentum of delivery was just beginning to gather pace. The last thing it needed was a staggering climate reversal from the historically largest carbon polluter and one still recovering from the catastrophic California forest fires and the devastating storms, Helene and Milton, hitting it in 2024.


America’s exit from the Paris Accords will have serious consequences.

The announced US exit from the Paris Accords will, undoubtedly, have serious consequences.

Firstly, while it fractures the required global ambition for slashing emissions, it will also be interpreted as an abdication of responsibility, which stands to damage the integrity of the US leadership on the global stage. The erratic oscillation between the ‘green new deal’ and ‘drill baby drill’ will certainly not improve its international reliability.

Secondly, it will create a leadership vacuum on the climate stage. The previous exit of the US, although it got reversed before operationalising, clearly saw the rest of the world unifying with China as well as individual US states stepping up the leadership ladder to fill the vacuum. That, in all likelihood, will happen again.

Thirdly, the US risks losing out on the associated clean energy boom, estimated at over $2 trillion last year, as it sprints in the opposite direction to the electric mobility and renewable energy transitions happening across the world. Thus, the shock and awe attack on climate change may well backfire.

Another surprising aspect is that this reversal does not seem to be based on climate denial as other aspects of Trump 2.0 are actually premised on the acceptance of climate change. The Greenland push is based on the climate-induced melting of the region, opening up a race to control new trade corridors and the precious natural resources being unearthed.

Similarly, the control of the Panama Canal is necessitated by the acceptance of a climate-trigge­red drying up

of Lake Gatun, which has rest­r­icted ship movement and is, thereby, compe­lling prioritised control. The only logic driving this swift shift se­­e­ms to be that more drilling will bring down gas prices and control inflation. However, if effective, it would have happened as the US is already the largest oil producer. While this flawed strategy can see many other slips between the cup and the lip, what it certainly threatens to exacerbate is the runaway global temperature rise.

It can only be hoped that a rethink will take place. The world critically needs the innovative leadership of the US, with its potential to unleash and globally drive a green and low-carbon transformation. The issue of climate change is not about political posturing or controlling inflation but an unwinnable confrontation between humanity and nature.

The world needs to collectively get off the warpath with nature and restore the delicate balance which has been disturbed. Otherwise, nature will relentlessly continue to react. This is not a war that can be won or a deal that can be sealed.

amin.attock@gmail.com
X: @aminattock

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BIG TECH'S BIG RUSH

Accelerationism emerged in the 1990s from the fringes of British academia as a postmodernist take on Marxism. 

Nadeem F. Paracha 

 February 9, 2025 

EOS/DAWN

Illustration by Abro

Everyone seems to be in a hurry. This impatience is not about what was once called ‘the rat race.’ The rat race was towards a well-defined goal. Yet, it was cyclic for most. Round and round they went. The faster they ran, the stronger the system that they were a part of got. The race was organised by a well-oiled bureaucracy, and overseen by governments and corporations that provided incentives for people to stay in the race.

Increasingly, however, people are dropping out of the old rat race. It had turned them into nuts and bolts in a machine. Their goal was to survive and race up a mechanical hierarchy, even though most just kept going in circles. From the late 1920s till the early 1970s, the rat race remained to be a thing.

However, from the 1990s, when digital technology first began to expand, it introduced itself as the tool with the potential to dismantle the old machine and free the people trapped inside it. Instead of people going in circles to achieve ‘meaningless’ goals, the new technology was to ‘empower’ them to become individuals who could write their own destinies.

The creators of this technology promised that it would unleash “direct democracy”, increase “real communication” and usher in a system in which anyone willing to use their imagination, creativity and “dream big” would have the opportunity to prosper.

Technological advancements come with the notion that they are liberating people from the old, soulless forms of capitalism. But are people being duped and led towards societal collapse and an authoritarian techno-capitalist future?

But, eventually, the new technology ended up creating a whole new machine: “Techno-capitalism.” Being part of this machine is not as ‘soulless’ as it was in the old one. In fact, the new machine is addictive. It feeds illusions of freedom and power to what are still nuts and bolts. People flock inside it like sheep, but with each believing they are “different”, “unique”, and “special”.

The capitalism that was active from the 1930s till at least the early 1970s was constantly modified to co-opt various aspects from ideas that were actually opposed to capitalism. This was done to keep those in the rat race from causing any disruption.

The capitalism produced by the new machine glorifies everything digital. It glamorises artificial intelligence (AI) and popularises words such as “disruption”. It has made billionaires out of the ‘nerds’ who oversee its workings. The new machine’s nuts and bolts are unlike those of the old machine. These ones are made to believe that they are functioning of their own free will. They really aren’t.

The billionaires who oversee the workings of the new machine are not like old capitalists who were only interested in profit, but were also willing to modify their ambitions to mitigate the possibility of the nuts and bolts rebelling against the machine. Unlike the owners of the old machine, those running the new one are “incurable idealists.” Yes, you read that right. At least this is how they often portray themselves.

They position their businesses not as enterprises gunning for profit, but as conscientious projects which — through cutting-edge technology— will end environmental degradation, disease, poverty etc. This is often referred to as “techno-optimism.” To its critics, though, it’s a scam.

For example, techno-optimists have been touting electric vehicles as an effective means to mitigate greenhouse gases. But The Guardian reported in January 2023 that, in the US alone, transition to electric vehicles could require three times as much lithium as is currently produced for the entire global market.

Techno-optimists have also been hailing the potential of AI to resolve various long-standing problems. But, according to a July 2023 report in Scientific America, AI technology is likely to get worse, because the shoddy AI-generated content that is already on the internet is corrupting the training data for models to come.

The Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis refuses to call tech billionaires, ‘techno-capitalists.’ According to him, capitalism is being replaced by “feudalism in a digital guise” or “techno-feudalism.” Millions of people serve big tech overlords by handing over data to access their ‘cloud space.’ To Varoufakis, the consumers of tech giants are modern-day serfs.

In January this year, at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration ceremony, heads of major American tech companies were seen posing for a photograph. This is the same event in which the billionaire Elon Musk was accused of making the Nazi salute. He is a declared Trump supporter, but the alleged Nazi salute saw some of his critics claim that he was an “accelerationist”.

‘Accelerationism’ is a philosophy that seeks to speed up the intensification of societal collapse, to create a new order. Accelerationists look to use digital technology and its social, economic and political impact to bring forward a collapse that they say is inevitable.




Accelerationism emerged in the 1990s from the fringes of British academia as a postmodernist take on Marxism. Whereas the 19th century philosopher Karl Marx’s prediction of capitalism collapsing under its own weight, followed by a communist utopia, failed to materialise, the expansion of digital technology in the 1990s excited a group of young British academics who saw the end of capitalism caused by the “liberating” potentials of digital technology.

One of the leading thinkers of accelerationism was Nick Land. Convinced that the new technology would puncture capitalism, he advocated its acceleration through various means, so that a new, “more equitable order” that he and his colleagues were anticipating would arrive much earlier.

Land eventually ended up living in China, which he claimed was “the most accelerationist state.” Interestingly, though, on his return to England, Land’s accelerationism wasn’t seeking a more equitable order anymore. It was now seeking authoritarian city-states, with each being ruled by CEOs.

Land then went on to become a guru of sorts for far-right groups. He also became popular among big tech heads. He urged his followers to bring populists such as Trump to power.

To accelerationists, right-wing populists became important because they (the populists) seek to do away with “limitations” such as economic regulations and “worn out” government and state institutions.

Apparently, this, coupled with tech giants and their technology, will bring forward a future controlled by authoritarian CEO types in charge of technologically advanced city-states. The presence of big tech folk at Trump’s presidential inauguration has sparked fears that this dystopian version of accelerationism has seeped into big tech companies.

It won’t be far-fetched to assume that people’s impatience today is being triggered by accelerated digital technology, on its way to land the world in an authoritarian techno-capitalist future. So do stop and smell the flowers every now and then. Slow down.

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 9th, 2025

SMOKERS’ CORNER: WESTERN BLIND SPOTS

Temelkuran fears that Western societies may once again be slipping into fascism. 

A fascism with enough clout and energy to come to power again, as it did in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s.

Nadeem F. Paracha 

EOS/DAWN

Illustration by Abro

In early 2024, an American academic sent me a collection of studies and essays on the global decline/ backsliding/ degradation of democracy. After spending months going through them, I noticed that most Western political scholars were continuing to somewhat undermine the dilemma that democracy was facing in their own countries.

Indeed, in the last decade or so, much has been said and written in the so-called ‘Global North’ about the creeping rise of far-right politics in the US and in Europe. Yet, the gaze of most Western political scholars is still largely fixed on countries in Asia, Africa and Central/ South America. It is only now that some Western political scientists are realising that, when most of them were focused on studying ‘fragile democracies’ elsewhere, democracy in their own countries was mutating in a most corrosive manner.

It wasn’t until Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016, the success of the ‘leave vote’ during the same year’s ‘Brexit’ referendum in the UK, and the manifold increase in the electoral popularity of far-right groups in Europe, that those preoccupied with the problematic nature of democracy in countries outside Europe and North America, suddenly realised that not all was well with their own democracies, which — especially after the Second World War — had been touted as the ‘best’ that the world had ever seen.

Trump’s dramatic rebound victory in November 2024’s presidential election, and the continuing upsurge in the popularity of far-right groups in multiple European countries, just might alter the rather apologetic manner in which the contemporary state of democracy in the ‘Global North’ is being studied. I use the word ‘apologetic’ because more effort is being put on explaining the rise of far-right politics in the West as a temporary problem which democracy itself will resolve through a self-correcting mechanism.

As the far-right gains momentum across the West, Western academics long fixated on ‘fragile democracies’ in the Global South are now grappling with the cracks emerging within their own democracies

But I believe that Western academics in this regard have been in denial. They couldn’t see the electoral rise of the far-right in the Global North until it began breaching mainstream politics from the early/ mid-2010s onwards.

This strand of politics did not drop in from some alien realm. It emerged from within Western societies. It then organised itself around loud, charismatic figures, and eventually saw its followers enter parliaments and, in some cases, come to power.

According to the Turkish journalist and author Ece Temelkuran, intellectuals and politicians who were convinced that far-right sentiments (in the West) had been exorcised after the defeat of fascist regimes in the Second World War, were being over-optimistic.

In her 2019 book How To Lose A Country, Temelkuran wrote that fascism never went away. It was just sidelined and then buried underneath the weight of a narrative that explained the victory of the ‘anti-fascist’ forces in the war as the victory of democracy over fascism. Temelkuran wrote that, after the war, the word ‘fascism’ was expunged from political discourse because, apparently, it had been eliminated in the West.

The original title of Temelkuran’s book was How To Lose A Country: 7 Steps— From Democracy To Fascism. But her publishers in Europe requested her to replace the word ‘fascism’ with ‘dictatorship’ in the title. According to Temelkuran, Western academics refused to even contemplate the possibility that fascism may still be quite alive in their societies and that the electoral rise of the far-right there cannot simply be seen as a case of ‘populism’ or a temporary bump.

Temelkuran sees this bump as a warning. She fears that Western societies may once again be slipping into fascism. A fascism with enough clout and energy to come to power again, as it did in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s.

Nevertheless, with the far-right refusing to recede and, in fact, gaining even more electoral momentum, some Western academics are now willing to at least explore the notion that Western democracy is in serious trouble. Even though the far-right is entering mainstream politics through legitimate electoral means, it is attacking the very foundations on which Western democracy is built.

No wonder then, in 2024, when Temelkuran set out to publish an updated version of her book, she was able to use the word ‘fascism’ in the title. This time no one requested her to replace it. In an interview, she summed up the reaction of those who are now more open to explore what she was suggesting: “How can it happen here? It’s supposed to be happening in crazy countries.”

The ‘crazy countries’ are the ones that are situated outside Europe and North America. Countries that are studied to understand authoritarianism. Yet, there is no denying the fact that, now more than ever, those studying these ‘crazy’ places have started to worry about the possibility of the same happening in their own countries.

After the Second World War, democracy was romanticised and peddled as an ideal political system compared to authoritarianism, especially left-wing authoritarianism. However, when communism collapsed in 1991, democracy’s warts and all became a lot more visible. What the world has been witnessing, for well over a decade now, is the withering away of the idealistic perception of democracy. It is democracy’s less pleasant sides that have become more prominent.

According to the Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde, authoritarian or illiberal forces that come to power through a democratic process are the result of a contradiction in democracy. Indeed, liberal democracy celebrates the protection of various rights, but it also encourages the rule of the majority. The problem arises when this majority consents to undo the rights that democracy provides. This is when democracy starts to devour its own tail.

Pakistan is one of the many ‘crazy countries’ that Western academics study. Yet, it is also a country where the ‘democracy-loving’ intellectuals, journalists and activists still view democracy in the overtly idealistic and romanticised manner that it began to be painted by the West after 1945.

But that painting is now smudged. In the Global North, as well as in the Global South, times are now demanding a less idealistic analysis of democracy. Democracy needs to be regulated in ways that may raise eyebrows among the purists and the idealists, but this has to be done if democracy is to be protected — protected from its own idealised image, its contradictions and, of course, from authoritarian forces who are trying to use these contradictions to come to power and actually dismantle democratic institutions.

It is naive to continue idealising democracy without critiquing it from some awkward angles.

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 26th, 2025

LIBERAL MUSLIMS

Aga Khan, late leader of Ismailis, to be buried in Egypt today

Jamil Nagri 

DAWN

February 9, 2025 

Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan V (C), accompanied by his sons, Prince Irfan and Prince Sinan, looks at the coffin with the remains of his father Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of Shia Ismaili Muslims, during his funeral at the Ismaili community centre in central Lisbon on Feb 8, 2025. — AFP

A coffin of Prince Karim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, is carried into the hearse from the Ismaili Centre during his funeral in Lisbon, Portugal on Feb 8, 2025. — Reuters/Pedro Nunes


GILGIT: Prince Karim Aga Khan Al Hussaini, the 49th imam of Ismaili Muslims, will be buried in the Egyptian city of Aswan on Sunday.

His funeral at the Ismaili Centre in Lisbon was attended by more than 300 guests, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and former Spanish king Juan Carlos I, leaders of the Ismaili community and other dignitaries on Saturday.

In Gilgit-Baltistan and other parts of Pakistan, thousands of followers of the late spiritual leader gathered at their community centres and Jamaat Khanas to view the funeral ceremony broadcast from Lisbon.

In Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar, shops and businesses remained closed to mourn the death of Prince Karim, who died on Tuesday in Lisbon after nearly seven decades as the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims.



Finance minister, global dignitaries attend funeral in Lisbon

According to a statement by the Ismaili Imamat, the funeral was a closed event attended only by invited guests. The Ismaili community was represented by the 22 National Council presidents from around the world, including Pakistan.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb also represented Pakistan.

The ceremony was televised live on Ismaili TV and arrangements were made at community centres and Jamaat Khanas for the late leader’s followers to witness the funeral.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, members of the Ismaili community congregated in Gilgit, Hunza, and Ghizer districts to witness the ceremony.

A large number of people witnessed the funeral across GB despite harsh weather.

ALIABAD Bazaar, in Hunza, is closed, on Saturday. Markets remained shut in several parts of Gilgit-Baltistan on the occasion of the funeral of Aga Khan.—Dawn

Condolences

Prince Karim was regarded as a direct descendent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and enjoyed near-divine status as the 49th hereditary imam of Ismaili Muslims. He held British and Portuguese nationalities, as well as honorary Canadian citizenship, a distinction rarely given.

Prince Karim’s burial on Sunday would be a private ceremony, to be followed by a special homage ceremony in Lisbon on Tuesday.

His son and successor, Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini, who was named the 50th hereditary Imam, or spiritual leader, according to his father’s will, would also attend Tuesday’s ceremony.

He will grant an audience to senior leaders of the community, who will pledge their allegiance to him on behalf of Ismailis all over the world.

It is expected that Prince Rahim will ordain an update to the Ismaili constitution and bless the community.

On Saturday, Finance Minister Aurangzeb met Prince Rahim and expressed condolences on behalf of the president, the prime minister and the people of Pakistan, according to a statement issued by the finance ministry.

Finance Minister Aurangzeb meets with Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini after attending the funeral of Prince Karim Aga Khan Al Hussaini in Lisbon, Portugal on February 8. — PID


The minister lauded the services of Prince Karim and the Aga Khan Development Network for the socio-economic well-being of people and honouring cultural heritage.

He called Prince Karim’s demise a “monumental loss” not only for his family, friends and followers but also for the underprivileged and destitute people of the world. He recalled the late leader’s special attachment to Pakistan and its people.

Special prayers were also held for the late leader at Ismaili community centres across Pakistan.

Delegations representing various sects, political parties, social organisations, civil society and officials have been visiting Ismaili Council Centres in Gilgit, Ghizer, and Hunza for condolences.

They paid tribute to the late leader for his contribution to the region’s socio-economic development.

A day of mourning was observed across Pakistan on Saturday over the demise of Prince Karim.

National flags on important government buildings remained at half-mast across the country.

As Aga Khan, Al-Hussaini expanded the work of his grandfather, who created hospitals, housing and banking cooperatives in developing countries.

He invested part of the immense family fortune in the most deprived countries, combining philanthropy with business acumen.

To this end, he founded the Aga Khan Development Network, a gigantic foundation which is thought to have 96,000 employees worldwide and which funds development programmes, mainly in Asia and Africa.

A keen racehorse owner, he continued the family tradition of breeding thoroughbreds in his eight stables in France and Ireland. His horses won many of the most prestigious races.

With input from Agencies

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2025

Understanding the Aga Khan, leader of Ismaili Muslims

(RNS) — The Aga Khan IV was often referred to as a philanthropist, but the description ignores the spiritual impetus for his work.

FILE - The Aga Khan, spiritual leader to millions of Ismaili Muslims, addresses an audience, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015, at the Memorial Church on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

Hussein Rashid

RNS
February 7, 2025

(RNS) — On Tuesday (Feb. 4), Shah Karim al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, passed away in Lisbon, at age 88. For most Americans, this name has little meaning. People with a particular historical awareness may remember his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah, Aga Khan III, as one of the founders of the League of Nations and international statesman. But even those who know the lineage of the Aga Khans, a title that goes back to the British Raj in India, don’t understand who Shah Karim was.

Both men were Imams, or spiritual leaders, of a Muslim community known as the Ismailis. This community is a Shi’ah community that believes the Prophet Muhammad named his cousin and son-in-law Ali as the first Imam. This figure of the Imam is designated in the Quran, the revealed word of God, according to Muslims, and is guaranteed by God to guide the community of believers. The Aga Khans are descended from Prophet Muhammad through Imam Ali and his wife Fatima.

Shah Karim, the 49th Imam in the lineage, took his title as Aga Khan in 1954, when he was 20, after the death of his grandfather.

The Aga Khan IV, who headed the Aga Khan Development Network, was often referred to as a philanthropist, a label that he himself called deeply inaccurate. According to broader Shi’ah belief, three interrelated elements are believed to elevate one another: faith, knowledge, and action. To increase in any one area, you must increase in the other areas as well, and together each amplifies the other. Most importantly, faith and knowledge without action is selfish and a denial of God’s blessings.

RELATED: The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88

In May 2006, in accepting the Tolerance Award from the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing, in Germany, the Aga Khan said, “I am fascinated and somewhat frustrated when representatives of the Western world … try to describe the work of our Aga Khan Development Network … they often describe it either as philanthropy or entrepreneurship.” He attributed the misconception to a false dichotomy made between secular and religious and explained that his work is in fact an expression of this relationship among faith, knowledge and action.

In the speech, he emphasized that he aimed “to improve the quality of worldly life for the concerned communities,” offering two exemplar inspirations. The first is the first verse of the Quran’s fourth chapter, which says “O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from the twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women.” The verse, the Aga Khan said, says that we are all connected, coming from the same origin, and that we are also diverse, and this is a sign of God’s blessings.

The second piece of inspiration he gave was a teaching of Imam Ali, which speaks of ideal virtues, including faith, knowledge and action and the ability to have humility and seek consultation.

The Aga Khan was a historical figure, a man of the world who skied in the Olympics on the Iranian team, received numerous honorary degrees and worked as an international peacemaker. But it is important to understand what drove him to achieve these things. The Tutzing speech is a window into that impetus: He didn’t act out of a wish for worldly acclaim or the disbursement of worldly wealth. Rather, his course in life was an expression of faith and knowledge, an essential part of what it means to be a believer, to be human.

A person of integrity, the Aga Khan did everything as part of a comprehensive whole. There was not a part that was separate from another part. For his community, he was the living exemplar of what it meant to embody the ethics of religion in its most complete form. His passing is a loss to the community and a reminder that God has promised them continual guidance, in the line of Imams that continues with his son, Prince Rahim al-Hussaini, Aga Khan V.


(Hussein Rashid, Ph.D., is an independent scholar based in New York and an Ismaili Muslim. The views in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

THE RUBIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

https://classics.mit.edu/Khayyam/rubaiyat.html

Omar Khayyam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam

PANNIER: Prince Karim Aga Khan IV obituary

A philanthropist, Aga Khan IV was devoted to his people, the Ismailis, many of whom live in remote areas of some of the world’s poorest countries. / AKDNFacebook

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By Bruce Pannier February 7, 2025

Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of some 15 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide, died in Portugal on February 4 aged 88.

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) announced the passing of the “49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad” on their website.

The Aga Khan was born into a wealthy family. He lived what most people would call a lavish life, mingling with heads of state and royalty, and devoted much time to his passion of horse-breeding and horse racing.

His horses won the Derby Stakes five times. One of the horses, Shergar, won in 1981 by the widest margin in Derby history, only to be kidnapped two years later. The horse was never found, and no suspects were ever apprehended.

But the Aga Khan was also a philanthropist, and impact investor, who was always devoted to his people, the Ismailis, many of whom live in remote areas of some of the world’s poorest countries.

Aga Khan IV's grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III, who died in 1957, chose his successor as a person of the world for the post-World War II times (Credit: AKDN).

For these people in particular, the Aga Khan was not only their spiritual leader, but also the source of better education, the builder of needed infrastructure, and in some cases, their saviour in desperate times.

Matt Reed, the global director of Institutional Partnerships for the Aga Khan Foundation, told bne IntelliNews that the Aga Khan was “a spiritual leader who felt an obligation to humanity to improve the quality of life for all people living in countries where he or his community were present.”

Prince Karim Al-Hussaini was born in Geneva, Switzerland on December 13, 1936. His father was Prince Aly Salomone Khan, while his mother was Joan Yarde-Buller, a British socialite. After the two divorced in 1949, Prince Aly Khan married movie star Rita Hayworth.

As a small child, Prince Karim lived in Kenya, but he moved to Switzerland to attend school. Afterwards, he majored in Islamic history at Harvard University. His grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III, died in 1957 having directed that Prince Karim, rather than Karim’s father or uncle, should be the next Aga Khan.

Aga Khan III gave this instruction because he felt it was important that the new Aga Khan was a person of the world in atomic physics and other post-World War II technologies and inventions.

Prince Karim was 20 years-old when he became the Aga Khan. Despite his position, he returned to Harvard with an entourage and completed his studies, graduating in 1959.

Aga Khan IV established the Aga Khan Foundation in 1967 “to address the root causes of poverty and support community institutions to carry out sustainable, locally-driven initiatives that improve the quality of life.”

When Ismaili communities in several African countries were expelled or displaced, along with other South Asians, in the early 1970s, the Aga Khan helped to resettle them in Asia, Europe and North America.

Children in Osh, the Kyrgyz Republic, at an Aga Khan Foundation teacher training class on latest early childhood development pedagogies and techniques (Credit: AKDN).

The Aga Khan’s work expanded over the years. Hundreds of schools, two universities and dozens of hospitals and clinics were built.

He also sponsored thousands of agricultural projects, including research into hybrid crops that can grow at high altitudes, as well as the building of large-scale energy infrastructure. Moreover, he helped with the construction of small hydropower plants that serve remote communities, invested in telecommunications, organised microfinancing, and more.

In 2008, all of these projects were grouped under a common umbrella, and the Aga Khan Development Network was created.

The AKDN now works in more than 30 countries, but one of the most important areas the organisation works in is the Pamir Mountains, where Ismaili communities of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan are found.

There are some 500,000 Ismailis living in Pakistan. The Aga Khans have kept close connections with the country and have been doing philanthropic work in its Ismaili region for more than a century. The father of Aga Khan IV served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1950s.

The AKDN started work in Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the 1990s, a time when there was civil war in both countries.

The Aga Khan is credited by many with saving many of the more than 200,000 Ismailis in mountainous, remote Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of eastern Tajikistan from starvation during the Central Asian country’s 1992-1997 civil war.

In the years after the war, the cash-strapped Tajik government was unable to spend money on GBAO, a region that the government’s civil war opponents used for bases because of its nearly inaccessible terrain.

The AKDN stepped in to assist and helped the government develop educational facilities, businesses and infrastructure in GBAO. It also built several bridges to connect the region to Badakhshan Province in neighbouring Afghanistan, where Ismaili communities are present.

The organisation helped establish the University of Central Asia in the GBAO regional capital Khorog (and later another UCA in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan), providing opportunities for local young people to obtain higher education without leaving GBAO.

Over the course of some 30 years, the Aga Khan spent some $1bn on projects in GBAO.

Condolences over the death of Aga Khan IV were expressed by many world leaders, past and present. King Charles III said he was "deeply saddened" on the passing away of his "personal friend of many years" (Credit: AKDN).

Since it started work in Afghanistan during the mid-1990s, the AKDN has never left the country. Some 200,000 Ismailis live in Afghanistan.

The AKDN is currently working in 26 Afghan provinces, 11 directly and 15 in partnership with other organisations, benefitting some 12mn people. The AKDN has actually expanded its Afghanistan operations in the years since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

The network has proved more than a lifeline to the communities it has assisted. It has helped all of them to improve their living situations and prospects, not only in the Pamir Mountains, but in other parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Reed, of the Aga Khan Foundation, said Aga Khan IV had three principles for the AKDN’s work, namely “Absolute commitment” to working with all the people in the communities where it operates, regardless of faith or background; establishing institutions that would endure long after his death, whether the governments of these countries were weak or strong; and community ownership of all the projects so that everything the AKDN built or helped establish, either belonged to, or was managed by, the communities or local people.

Aga Khan IV has been described in the media as a “socialite” or “playboy,” and that was part of his life. But the work he did for not only his Ismaili communities, but also for the people living with or near these communities, was so often invaluable.

The schools and universities, hospitals, power plants, rural projects, hotels, parks and local financing institutions Aga Khan IV leaves behind will benefit the people of these regions for generations to come.

It is therefore not surprising that among those expressing their condolences on the Aga Khan’s death and praise for his work were Pakistani President Asif Ai Zardari, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and King Charles III.

(Credit: AKDN).

It is a proud legacy, and it now falls to his son, Prince Rahim (pictured above), to carry on the work as Aga Khan V.

THE PECA DOSSIER

‘Wild and distasteful’: Journalists assemble against Pakistan’s new cybercrime law

The Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act 

is objectionable for all — even those journalists who otherwise feel social media is being misused.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim 

February 7, 2025

PRISM/DAWN

“I may not be able to continue hosting my show because the content I put up will most certainly land me in prison,” said senior correspondent Azaz Syed who works for a private TV channel, but who also has his own private online digital channel. He was referring to the recent amendment in the already existing cybercrime law, terming it a “wild” law which has been instituted to grapple with fake news among other online harms.

The new version — Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025 — passed hurriedly, within a week, in both the houses without debate, and signed into a law by President Asif Ali Zardari on January 29, has triggered nationwide protests by the country’s media personnel.

“They have taken away my right to freedom of expression,” Syed remarked.

“I fail to understand the uproar among journalists working in electronic media. They already have Pemra, [the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority] which is responsible for facilitating and regulating private electronic media,” said Minister for Information and Broadcasting Atta­ullah Tarar. “This law is to regulate social media and countries across the world have some codes or standards under which social media operate; but there was none in our country.”

He said the existing authority, which is the Federal Investigation Authority, that looked into cybercrimes seemed ill-equipped to handle the expanding nature of online crimes taking place — harassment, pornography, national security threats, spreading economic uncertainty; just look at the conviction rate, which is dismal,“ he defended the amendment.

Tarar’s reference to the “uproar” stems from TV journalists, like Syed, who have gigs on online platforms and fear the restrictions on content imposed by Peca.

For the past two years, Syed has been hosting a popular show on YouTube called Talk Shock, focusing on sensitive topics like the Pakistan army, intelligence agencies, blasphemy laws, persecution of Ahmadis, and forced conversions of Hindu girls. He described it as a passion project addressing issues close to his heart, despite potential disapproval from authorities. His show has gained over eight million viewers and 174,000 followers, also providing him with extra income.

Hamid Mir, host of Capital Talk, one of the oldest and highest-rated political talk shows, launched his digital TV channel on YouTube after being banned from TV in 2021 (he had already been banned twice, in 2007 by military dictator Pervez Musharraf and in 2008 by the ruling Pakistan People’s Party) for speaking against the country’s powerful military for persecuting journalists. “I share my opinions there when I am unable to on the channel that I’m employed in. Having your own platform is liberating,” he said. He has 263,000 viewers.

Azaz Syed, who has his digital TV programme on YouTube called Talk Shock. Credit: Azaz Syed

Mir’s greater worry though is the possibility of losing his voice on X, where he connects with over eight million followers. “If I can’t speak my mind, it will have a profound impact on me,” he said.

But even those journalists who otherwise feel social media is being misused find the law distasteful.

“I have zero tolerance for fake news, and am all for regulating the beast that social media has become, but not this way, certainly,” said senior investigative journalist, Umar Cheema, terming it a “third class” law.

The law was originally passed in 2016, by the same ruling party that has brought the current amendments — the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. It had been met with much criticism even then.

“The reason for the need for the law given back in 2016 was to counter hate speech, terrorist content and harassment of women — this time the ruse is fake news,” said Farieha Aziz’s co-founder of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights. The suspicion and criticism against the law now and then is the same — the government is using this law to “stifle political dissent and rein in freedom of expression,” she said.

The amendment to the law, criminalises fake news and its dissemination with a prison term of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs2 million (about $7,200).

But, pointed out Aziz, the concern went beyond just the penalties associated with the amendment to the law — it is the “potential for misuse” in the process of determining what constitutes fake news. “People will be reluctant to share or even discuss information out of fear that it might be deemed false or harmful, leading to criminal charges,” she explained, adding the definition of fake news was vague and broad. “They have created a vagueness through the use of language taken from the anti-terrorism act, around the offence,” she pointed out.

“The government operates in grey areas and likes to keep people in a state of confusion,” agreed Cheema.

Moreover, pointed out Munazza Siddiqui, senior producer on a private TV channel: “The law is unconstitutional as it violates the fundamental right to freedom, a core principle enshrined in our Constitution.”

She uses TikTok, a platform predominantly used for putting up entertaining content, for disseminating news and opinions. “It’s popular with young people but works superbly for me as they are my audience. The millennials and Gen Z want to stay informed about the world around them, but they lack the patience to sit through long articles or watch lengthy news segments on TV. I provide them with both in just a minute or so!”

However, Siddiqui acknowledged that her vlogging might be impacted. With the sword of Damocles hanging over her, in the form of the newly revised cyber law, she said, “We already navigate a space of self-censorship, and now there’s an added layer of fear.”

The law establishes four bodies — the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority, the Social Media Complaints Council, the Social Media Protection Tribunal, and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency — concentrating significant power. Aziz warned that these bodies, appointed by the federal government, could lack independence, creating potential conflicts of interest and undermining fairness and accountability.

“And the window of appeal has also been closed as I can only go to the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” said Azaz, which was an expensive route to prove your innocence.

Although the 2016 cybercrime law was already considered draconian by experts, the reason to tweak it further, explained Cheema, was that “the nature and use of social media has changed and become more sophisticated since then, adding that the media needed to share the blame for the recent shape the law has taken.

Cheema said the media did not establish a code of conduct for responsible social media use which led the government to step in, using the fake news excuse to silence dissenting voices. He emphasized that while media can express opinions, facts must be solid, and journalists should hold each other accountable. “Yet, we don’t even call out our colleagues for lying.”

Finding the nationwide protest hypocritical, he questioned, “The bill wasn’t a surprise — everyone knew it was being revised. Why didn’t anyone speak up then? Where were the protests and revisions when it was in the National Assembly and Senate? There was silence, and now, after it’s law, they’re out on the streets.”

“The law is in place,” Tarrar said with finality. However, he added: “The rules are still being worked out, and we’re open to media input to refine them.”

“Recalling the law may be tough,” agreed Cheema, but if the media is concerned, “They can come up with their own system; no one is stopping them; but that’s the real test for our community.”

Header image: Pakistani journalists speak out about cybercrime law from left to right Hamid Mir, Munazza Siddiqui and Umar Cheema. Credits: Jang News, and TikTok

This article was originally published in Inter Press Service and has been reproduced here with permission.

Our algorithm-driven reality

Abbas Nasir 

DAWN

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

PAKISTAN’S National Assembly ignored all objections and protestations by the opposition, digital rights activists and journalists to hurriedly push through the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act this week in an attempt to police social media platforms that the hybrid government has struggled to muzzle.

The question, however, is whether Pakistan is unique in its attempts to come to grips with social media. The answer is an emphatic no as is clear from examples of the US, India and China where social media has posed challenges of varying degrees and kinds.

Ever since the ouster of Imran Khan as prime minister in a vote of no-confidence in April 2022, after he fell out with the military leadership, the latter and its civilian acolytes in the PML-N and PPP have struggled to tame social media platforms dominated by their political rival.

Despite considerable effort, both legal and extrajudicial, including forced disappearances and arrests of social media activists belonging to Imran Khan’s PTI, the attempts of the regime to bring social media under control, where the latter party enjoys unrivalled superiority, have been frustrated.

Pakistan has justified its measures to put social media platforms on a leash, saying they are destabilising the gains ostensibly made by the economy under the hybrid system in place since 2022. The truth is that, more than anything else, these measures are placing roadblocks in a high-growth sector. How so?

The question is whether Pakistan is unique in its attempts to come to grips with social media.

Whether it is the firewall that slows down the internet or curbs on certain platforms or other measures, software exporters say that these are adversely affecting their business and also depriving individuals offering their services abroad of an opportunity to earn badly needed foreign exchange for the country.

India’s exports are largely driven by the services sector, namely IT; experts say the country’s huge foreign exchange surplus owes itself to these exports. And here we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater as we are bereft of ideas on how to ‘control’ anti-government content on social media.

However, Pakistan isn’t alone in trying to curb free data and information flows (admittedly these also include falsehoods and propaganda). Take, for example, the current tension in the US between TikTok and the authorities, where President Donald Trump has given the platform a three-month reprieve after it was banned.

While officially, the concern regarding TikTok is about a ‘Chinese-controlled’ firm harvesting US user date to develop algorithms and others digital weapons that could be used in an information or propaganda war with the US, there are other, more potent issues as well.

Israel’s Gaza genocide is one. Where US-owned (and controlled) social media platforms such as Facebook are said to have used algorithms to block content showing events in their entirety, X and even Meta’s Instagram were more cunning.

In the words of one social media user, X’s Elon Musk has repeatedly talked of his commitment to ‘free speech’, but has made no such promise to ensure ‘free reach’. The devil is in this detail. While most of us were free to post almost any information/ opinion on Gaza, critics say the platform algorithms kicked in to give greater reach to pro-Gaza genocide posts.

Ever since Musk took over Twitter and rechristened it X, many accounts, which were adding a certain number of followers every month, have stopped growing as has their reach. My own ‘followers’ count has not grown for months now, neither has my reach or views. I can only attribute it to the gulf between my worldview and the one promoted by Musk’s algorithms.

TikTok was a thorn in the side of the apartheid state’s supporters and hence the need to ban it. Now there are indications from no less than the US president himself that he’d want an American entrepreneur to purchase the app. This to dictate and direct content/ information flows in future conflicts, including in Gaza in case the peace deal collapses. With the bulk of traditional media already onside, US free speech advocates have remained largely silent over this ‘algorithm-controlled’ freedom.

China is at least not hypocritical and does not lecture the world on the virtues of freedom. It firewalls all content that it does not like. It is an authoritarian state which has decided to focus on economic development, while leaving political rights for another day.

Beijing has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty over the past 40 years. The World Bank said in a report in April 2022: “With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty.”

Again, this by no means is an endorsement of China’s two-track policy whereby economic well-being comes against the backdrop of few or no political rights. Ironically, while the world has issues with this policy in China, it embraces despots in the Arab world doing exactly the same because they toe Washington’s line on global and regional politics.

India, where the space for non-Hindutva politics and thoughts may be dramatically shrinking under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a different story. Those in power have the bulk of the traditional media in their pocket and a handful of BJP politicians and oligarchs such as Ambani and Adani are calling the shots.

The size of the India market endows the country with enormous power. It has applied pressure on all social media platforms to sign up to tight regulations, obliging them to moderate (read: censor) content that the government finds unsavoury. The revenues the tech companies earn from India makes them weak-kneed when faced with government pressure.

In a fluid, ever-evolving situation, it is difficult to predict or even visualise the exact shape of things to come. One hopes this fascinating and challenging scenario does not lad to a world where we smugly celebrate ‘access to free information’ and forget how algorithm-tainted it may well be.


abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025

Throttling free speech

Usama Khilji 

DAWN

The writer is director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights.


AT a time when there should be an introspective stocktaking of the internet governance regime in Pakistan, the government has instead recommended drastic changes to the cybercrime law by proposing four new bodies as well as adding vague and broad definitions of online harms that criminalise speech further and carry a penalty of three years in jail for sharing “false or fake information”.

By this point, there is no surprise that the Peca amendment was passed without any multi-stakeholder consultation. Law and policymaking are supposed to be inclusive processes with input from across the board, including stakeholders who are directly affected, experts that work in the field, media that will be at risk, and young people who form the majority of internet users.

The amendment essentially legalises most of the illegal internet-related actions that the state has been taking since Peca, the cybercrime law, was promulgated in 2016 by the PML-N.

First, it expands the definition of complainant from aggrieved party to “an individual, including victim, having substantial reason to believe that the offence has been committed” and expands the definition of person to “a natural person or a body politic or corporate”, which means that now organisations and government bodies can also use this law to prosecute people.


The disproportionate criminalisation of speech is bound to have a chilling effect.

Second, it criminalises “false and fake information”, stipulating that “whoever intentionally disseminates, publicly exhibits, or transmits any information through any information system, that he knows or has reason to believe to be false or fake and likely to cause or create a sense of fear, panic or disorder or unrest in general public or society shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend up to three years or with fine which may extend to two million rupees or with both”.

This disproportionate criminalisation of speech is bound to have a chilling effect, especially when such a vague and broad definition leaves plenty of room for abuse. The state has now taken the responsibility to determine the truth and jail those it deems to be digressing from it. This violates Pakistan’s commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 19 of which stipulates a three-part test which includes legality, necessity, and proportionality.

Third, the government is all-powerful — judge, jury and executioner — when it comes to content on social media, with little accountability or oversight that is essential in a constitutional democracy. The amendment forms four different bodies. A Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority presumably replaces the Pakistan

 Telecommunications Authority in internet content regulatory function and makes the directives of the government to the authority final.

So far, the PTA, which was supposed to be independent, could choose to follow directives of the government, but the new authority will be an extension of the government’s will. The PTA has been arguing in courts that it was ordered to block X by the interior ministry, when the law says that it is the PTA’s discretion to do so. The chairperson of the authority will be appointed only by the federal government.

A Social Media Complaint Council is being set up which will solicit complaints from the public regarding violation of sections of Peca. Additionally, a Social Media Protection Tribunal will hear appeals against content-related decisions of the authority. The appeals to its decisions can only be taken up in the Supreme Court, bypassing the appeals stage in the high courts, which violates fair trial and due process rights under Article 10 of the Constitution. The tribunal will have one retired judge of the high courts, one software engineer, and one journalist. Sophisticated legal interpretation cannot be left to such a council, and high court appeal must be granted.

Further, the amendment sets up a National Cyber Crime Investigation Authority to replace the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crime Wing. This is happening nine years since Peca was passed in 2016, during which time a lot was left to be desired by the existing bodies. To introduce new bodies at this point will set the process of the system’s efficiency under the law far back.

Fourth, the amendment further empowers the authority to determine what constitutes unlawful content, and nine categories have been added to it, expanding what Section 37 of Peca stipulated.

This includes content that “cast aspersions against any person including members of judiciary, armed forces, Majlis-i-Shoora (parliament) or a provincial assembly”, which will lead to huge influx of reporting from the authority to social media platforms against speech expressed on social media by citizens simply holding public officials accountable, by virtue of citizens being taxpayers and voters. The amendment also stipulates enlistment of social media platforms with the authority, which is another term for registering them locally, and empowers the authority to block the platform in case of non-compliance with censorship requests.

The Peca amendment and the further restrictions on speech it brings will have disastrous consequences for Pakistan.

First, it violates fundamental rights the same way as the Peca Ordinance passed by the PTI in 2021, which was struck down by the Islamabad High Court in April 2022, did. The right to freedom of speech and press freedom cannot be restricted to an extent where journalists risk three years in jail if the government decides their reporting or a citizen’s post is “false”. It also violates due process and fair trial rights by restricting appeals of decisions by the tribunal to the Supreme Court.

Second, the further shrinking of rights can have disastrous international consequences by violating the ICCPR, and risking Pakistan’s GSP-Plus status by the EU for trade concessions based on human rights performance.

Third, this further restricts the internet environment, risking economic losses as Pakistan already suffers from acute brain drain accelerated by internet issues caused by censorship, surveillance, and internet slowdown due to the firewall.

Any independent court would strike down such a draconian law in the interest of democratic constitutional rights and interests of the young people that need a free and open internet to progress and compete internationally.

X: @UsamaKhilji

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2025

Changes to cybercrime law unveiled amid protest

Iftikhar A. Khan 

DAWN

• Standing Committee on Interior to take up Peca (Amendment) bill today
• Changes proposed include creation of new authority with powers to block both content and social media platforms
• NCCIA to replace FIA Cybercrime Wing; 3-year terms suggested for disinformation
• Package to overhaul criminal justice system also laid before parliament

ISLAMABAD: A bill seeking amendments to the country’s cybercrime laws was introduced in the National Assembly on Wednesday, proposing three-year prison terms for spreading disinformation, dissolving the FIA’s Cybercrime Wing and setting up of a new investigation agency, and establishing a new authority with vast powers, which include partial or full blocking of social media platforms.

“Whoever intentionally disseminates, publicly exhibits or transmits any information through any information system, that he knows or has reason to believe to be false or fake and likely to cause or create a sense of fear, panic or disorder or unrest in general public or society shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend up to three years or with fine which may extend to Rs2m or with both,” reads the latest draft, titled the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Bill, 2025.

The proposed amendment to Peca was presented as a supplementary agenda item by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar on behalf of the interior minister.

The introduction coincided with a noisy protest by PTI-led opposition lawmakers, who criticised the speaker for refusing to grant the floor to Leader of the Opposition Omar Ayub Khan before the question hour.

The National Assembly’s Stan­d­ing Committee on Interior is set to convene today (Thursday) to dis­cuss the Peca (Amendment) Bill.

According to the bill, the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority will be based in Islamabad, with the provision to establish offices in other provinces as needed.

The authority will oversee the enlisting of social media platforms and set operational standards and ensure the protection of users’ rights while facilitating social media platforms.

The authority will be authorised to take disciplinary action against social media platforms violating the Peca Act. It can also direct relevant institutions to remove unlawful content from social media. Individuals affected by illegal online activities must report to the authority within 24 hours.

The authority will comprise nine members, including the interior secretary, the PTA chairman and the Pemra chairman serving as ex-officio members. The chairman and five other members will be appointed for a five-year term. The chairman must hold at least a bachelor’s degree or have 15 years of relevant experience.

The chairman will have the power to order the immediate blocking of any unlawful content on social media.

Under the new amendments, all social media platforms must register with the authority. Platforms failing to comply with the law may face temporary or permanent bans.

The authority will have the power to block content that contradicts the ideology of Pakistan or incites citizens to break the law.

It will also be authorised to block unlawful content targeting members of the judiciary, armed forces, parliament or provincial assemblies. Content deleted during parliamentary proceedings cannot be reuploaded on social media.

According to the amendment bill, statements from banned organisations or individuals cannot be uploaded on social media.

NCCIA, council and tribunal

The amendment also proposes the establishment of a Social Media Complaint Council. In cases where social media platforms fail to comply with directives, the authority will have the power to approach the tribunal for enforcement.

To investigate illegal activities on social med­ia, the federal government will establish the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), as per the amendment bill. The agency will be headed by a director general, appointed for a three-year term.

Officers and personnel of the authority will have powers equivalent to police officers of corresponding ranks. Upon the establishment of the new investigative agency, the FIA’s Cybercrime Wing will be dissolved.

The federal government will also establish a Social Media Protection Tribunal to enforce the provisions of the amended act. The tribunal will be chaired by a former high court judge and will include a journalist and a software engineer as members.

According to the proposed amendment, decisions made by the tribunal can be challenged in the Supreme Court within 60 days.

CrPC amendments

Earlier, the law minister also introduced a bill proposing 108 amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). The amendments aim to simplify the filing of FIRs, prevent false complaints and curb police excesses during arrests and detentions.

Mr Tarar highlighted provisions requiring lower courts to grant bail when police investigations favour acquittal. He also proposed a one-year timeline for completing trials in criminal cases, with high courts mandated to act if deadlines are exceeded. Pending appeals in high courts would also need to be resolved within a specified timeframe, with consequences for non-compliance.

The bill also includes provisions for using modern devices as evidence and invited input from lawmakers during committee reviews.

The National Assembly also passed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (Implementation) Bill, introduced by Dr Shezra Mansab Ali Khan Kharal.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary for Energy Aamir Talal Khan responded to a calling-attention notice, stating that 70 per cent of K-Electric’s 2,100 feeders are now loadshedding free. He added that 282 out of 295 feeders serving mixed-use consumers face no loadshedding, while only 30pc of feeders in high-loss areas experience power outages.

At the start of the session, Leader of the Opposition Omar Ayub Khan attempted to raise a point of order but was denied by Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who remarked, “No point of order will be allowed before the question hour is over. I do not make U-turns.”

This sparked a protest by PTI lawmakers, who chanted slogans in support of their imprisoned founder Imran Khan. They also tore copies of the agenda, which were seen flying all around.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025

Why the latest proposal to amend Peca is an attempt to further strangle free speech

Pakistan’s digital rights remain hostage to the same political charades that allowed Peca to flourish in the first place.




Farieha Aziz 

Published January 23, 2025

PRISM/DAWN


Ten years ago, in 2015, the first draft of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016, surfaced. But not because the government — then too the PML-N — felt the need to be transparent, share and consult. It was a leaked draft that was analysed and shared.

The draft sparked immediate alarm among digital rights activists, prompting a press conference in Islamabad to warn of the bill’s troubling implications. Yet, the mood in the room was sceptical. Reporters questioned the organisers: “How do you know this is the bill? Shouldn’t social media be regulated?”

Incidentally, the very next day, the National Assembly’s standing committee on IT approved a version of the bill similar to the one that had been circulated and spoken about at the press conference.

Over the next year and a half, the bill was vociferously debated both inside and outside the assemblies — not because the government encouraged such discourse, but because an alliance of civil society and industry, supported by allies in the opposition and media, ensured it happened. Despite the resistance, Peca eventually saw the light of day. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stood as a vocal opponent of the bill, making sure their stance was heard loud and clear. However, the bottom line is that this issue goes beyond mere posturing.

Empty resistance

While several legislators within the party deserve credit for keeping Peca under scrutiny, resisting it in the assembly, and proposing amendments, the momentum faltered when it truly mattered — in the Senate, where the opposition enjoyed a majority. When push came to shove, the resolve wavered.

The bill could have been stalled further, but when it reached the Senate’s standing committee, there was a rush to conclude discussions, with claims that “enough time” had been spent debating and that the bill “needed” to be passed. Despite substantial input and alternative legal formulations provided over the preceding year and a half, claims were made that civil society had failed to contribute anything meaningful or in a timely manner.

PPP legislators patted themselves on the back for a job well done — for proposing over 50 amendments to Peca in the Senate — all of which ultimately amounted to nothing more than cosmetic tweaks of full stops and commas. None of the substantive changes proposed by civil society were ever incorporated.

From the PML-N government, such disregard was expected. However, as the bill approached the finishing line, the PPP and its allies played their optics game, projecting an image of resistance while enabling the ushering in of a law they could have done far more to water down — if not stop altogether.

Now, the very same PPP and its members are delivering fiery speeches in Parliament about the state of the internet, and floating ideas for a digital rights bill. But what good can any bill or affirmative legislation do when the Constitution itself has been reduced to a redundant piece of paper? When protections enshrined in the Constitution hold no weight during investigations, prosecutions and trials, how can a special statute negate the draconian impact of the way a criminal law plays out on the ground — in an FIA office or at the trial court? Especially when the procedural safeguards that exist in the law itself are flouted with impunity.

Illusion of digital rights

Lawmakers often think that passing a law marks the end of their responsibility. They love presenting legislation as a feather in their cap. But proof of the pudding lies in its implementation which they do not care to monitor. This is despite the ample provisions under the legislative scheme, which include standing and special committees, to extend oversight and conduct law reform based on substantive analysis, not knee-jerk reactions and imagined problems.

What amendments since the time Peca was enacted in 2016 have been fielded to roll back its draconian nature? Other than the few times standing committees have taken up one-off issues raised about its implementation, what oversight, scrutiny or accountability has been conducted?

Even now, there are plenty of speeches about slow internet speeds, and standing committees have been addressing related matters such as the Web Management System (WMS) or firewalls. But what has this scrutiny yielded substantively? Has the government or PTA fessed up to the technology that has been deployed? Its capability? Procurement and operation details? Has any legislator so much as inquired about the specifics and followed up?

Parliament’s failure is compounded by that of courts where numerous petitions are pending, challenging the actions of the government and PTA for transgressing their bounds and seeking the protection of fundamental rights, but to no avail.

In this environment, what value, then, does a ‘digital rights’ bill have? The very executive trampling on all things digital has been empowered by this same legislature, including the PPP, through the 26th amendment, which has further weakened the courts. How, then, with a straight face, can the claim of a digital rights bill be made?
Another impending doom

Now, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Amendment Bill 2025 is staring us in the face.

It creates more offences, limits more categories of speech, enables regulatory capture through a new authority, and adds more red tape with onerous procedures via the creation of tribunals. The bill empowers the hand of the very authorities that continue to hold the internet, services, platforms and citizens hostage.

Only time will tell if these speeches will translate into tangible and substantive resistance — or if they will be opposed and stopped meaningfully, instead of being rubber-stamped as has become the norm in parliament.

As they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

There’s no ‘but’ anything this time around. These amendments are not needed and are certainly not being introduced to protect citizens. That fig leaf is long gone. They serve only to maintain the status quo, tightening the stranglehold over speech and information while further subjugating citizens.

Header image generated by DALL-E 3.