Pakistan is no stranger to ill-conceived laws and regulations that eventually prove crippling to the national good. Take the blasphemy laws, which over the years have become an instrument for the victimisation of individuals and minority communities.

Though less pernicious, the most recent example of discriminatory laws is the government’s announcement that the sending of ‘indecent, provocative and ill-motivated stories and text messages’ via email and cellphones will henceforth be punishable by up to 14 years of imprisonment under the Cyber Crime Act. According to the interior ministry, the government is initiating a campaign against ‘ill-motivated and concocted stories against the civilian leadership and the security forces.’

This borders on officially sanctioned censorship of the free flow of ideas and the people’s right to engage in debate over the actions of the government and its institutions. For one thing, the ‘law’ is dangerously loosely worded: the parameters of ‘indecent’ or ‘ill-motivated’ have not been defined. Neither have any conditions been identified under which potentially prosecutable offences will be delineated from legitimate discourse. This leads to the possibility of the regulation being misused to harass and silence the government’s critics. Indeed, the decision carries disturbing echoes of past attempts at censorship, for email and SMS messages are now an important means through which the voice of the people makes itself heard.

By criminalising what is essentially the people’s freedom to debate and comment, the government exposes itself to the charge of stifling political opposition rather than changing or reconsidering policy. Certainly, no person should be allowed to fan communal hatred or incite others to violence. But the laws governing freedom of speech must be specific and tightly worded, as they are for slander and libel.

The government would do well to remember that upholding the tenets of democracy, amongst them the freedom of legitimate expression, is an important part of retaining its democratic credentials. The political parties currently in power may tomorrow find themselves in the opposition, facing the sharp end of the stick they wield today.