ISLAMABAD: The special court of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday acquitted journalist Khalid Jamil in a case registered against him for allegedly defaming institutions.

Special judge (central) Shahrukh Arjumand quashed the first information report (FIR) registered in September this year.

The FIR stated that the journalist was “found sharing and propagating highly intimidating content/tweets on social media/Twitter” (now X).

It invoked Section 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), which states: “Whoever intentionally and publicly exhibits or displays or transmits any information through any information system, which he knows to be false, and intimidates or harms the reputation or privacy of a natural person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine which may extend to one million rupees or with both.”

The FIR also included Section 505 (statement conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

During the course of hearing, the judge inquired from Jamil as if he had posted against the judiciary on X.

He replied that his post was of general in nature and, in fact, he had reposted a tweet of another journalist. He said he was not using the social networking platform of X for a couple of months.

The judge asked the prosecutor about the number of posts against the institutions to which he was told that they were enormous.

When the judge asked if the FIA had registered cases on all the posts on X, the prosecutor replied that FIRs were registered in some of the cases as most of the questionable posts were generated through fake accounts. The judge then acquitted Jamil from the case.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2023