KARACHI: ‘Are your rights being protected or violated?’ This was the main question raised during a dialogue on the implementation of the Cybercrime Bill organised by Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP), I am Karachi and The Debating Circuit Karachi at the Pakistan American Culture Centre here on Tuesday.

Two lawyers and two business school students were ‘for’ the implementation of the of the Cybercrime Bill while another four sitting across them, two teachers with a law and a business school student, were ‘against’ it. And as they debated the idea, there were the judges jotting down the points to declare the winner in the end.

“With the infiltration of technology like 3G and 4G, protecting children from cyber harassment and cyber bullying can be a challenge. The bill looks to cut down the frauds,” Advocate Yelmaz Mujtaba said, opening the debate and showing his favour for the implementation of the bill.

Kazi Haseeb, a student of law and leader of the opposition at the debate, pointed out that cybercrime was not just about cyber bullying. “Freedom of expression is our right and the government shouldn’t interfere there as long as it doesn’t violate anyone else’s right. But with the implementation of the cybercrime bill no one will be allowed to even criticise anything done by the government because it will be taken as going against national security. Without criticism the government wouldn’t evolve and there would also be no intellectuality. We would rather be sheeple!” he said.

Sarosh Hasan, a student, then speaking for the bill brought up the example of Saad Aziz, a well-educated man who converted to radicalism through the internet and went as far as murdering someone. “Fanatic terrorists on the internet are targeting individuals all the time,” he said.

Speaking against the bill, Saif Shahid, a student, said that it would give the state mechanism and power, which it did not deserve. “Rationale exists as long as freedom of speech exists. Giving overrated power can be problematic. We need active law to keep a check on the government. Also information or data stored in one place or area is never safe,” he said.

Advocate Hassaan bin Shaheen, favouring the bill, said the government had to do unpopular things to stop terrorism. “ISIS and other terrorist outfits are forwarding their agenda by recruiting young people through the internet all the time. These people are vile and evil and to stop them you have to have a Cybercrime Bill,” he said.

Abdullah Quresh, a student, speaking against the bill said that there would be chaos if you put all your data in the hands of the ISI. The government may think that they were banning the Taliban this way, but they were actually banning the freedom of speech. The majority of the people using computers and the internet were educated and they could not be manipulated easily.

Mohazzab Abdullah, a student, while concluding the debating arguments of the team against the Cybercrime Bill, said that the state had an interest in preventing criticism.

Humza Jami, while concluding the arguments for the bill pointed out that the ISI was not stupid to waste its energy on useless matter collected from the common people. They would know what they were looking for in the data collected if the bill was implemented.

Saad Amanullah Khan, president of PILAP, who was also one of the people judging the debate, advocate Sumaiyya Zaidi, Hassaan bin Shaheen of The Debating Circuit Karachi and Nabeel Anjum also spoke.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2015

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