PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party has described the government’s decision to regulate social media platforms as an attempt to gag voice of the public and warned that the party will resist any step against freedom of expression.

The resolution in this regard was adopted at a training session arranged by the party in Peshawar on Friday. Besides party’s provincial office-bearers, its social media organisers from different divisions participated and shared views on the occasion.

Party’s provincial president Mohammad Humayun Khan, vice-president Syed Ayub Shah, provincial secretary information Senator Rubina Khalid, Gohar Inqilabi and PPP social media central coordinator Hafiz Naeem Raja spoke about significance of the social media.

The speakers said the society as a whole would have to stand for rights of the people and oppose the curbs on free speech and freedom of expression.

They feared that the current regulations, if implemented, would place further restrictions on the social media, curtail freedom of speech and violate people’s fundamental rights.

They said that before coming into power Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had used the social media against its political rivals, but its government was now attempting to curtail the freedom of speech.

The government, they said, had lost its popularity due to its ‘immature’ policies and thus its days were numbered. They alleged that the government had focused only on victimisation of the opposition and curbing media freedom.

On this occasion, the party leaders shared party initiatives and future plan with the social media workers and said that PPP would organise its sister organisations to strengthen the party at all levels in order to compete the rival political parties, mainly in future election.

It was decided that social media conventions would also be arranged at divisional level.

Published in Dawn, February 29th, 2020