PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday put on notice Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), seeking its response to a petition requesting for complete ban on a popular video-sharing application TikTok as it failed to stop uploading of ‘blasphemous and indecent’ material on it.

A bench consisting of PHC Chief Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah fixed June 26 for next hearing, directing a counsel appearing for PTA, Jehanzeb Mehsud, to submit its reply.

The petition is filed by a lawyer Imran Khan, requesting the court to direct the respondents including the PTA, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and ministry of information to permanently ban TikTok in Pakistan on the continued, recurring and consistent breach of community guidelines, which violated the Constitution, provisions of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), Rule 3 of Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021, and provisions of Pakistan Penal Code.

He prayed the court to direct the respondents not to allow such applications in future which affected moral and ethical values of the Pakistani people.

PHC bench fixes June 26 for next hearing of petition

During previous hearing, the bench had issued notice to Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), also a respondent in the petition, and had sought its comments.

A counsel appearing for Pemra stated that the authority was not regulator of social media including TikTok and it had been regulated by PTA. When the bench inquired whether it had issued notice to PTA, Barrister Babar Shahzad Imran, appearing for the petitioner, replied in negative.

Barrister Babar stated that there were benefits of social media but some social media platforms had opened the way to express anything disregarding decency, morality and the glory of Islam in countries like Pakistan.

He said that the TikTok application, launched by a Chinese company, was a social media platform that allowed users to create, share and discover short-form videos. He stated that as per current statistics, there were almost 54.4 million Pakistani users on TikTok making it 7th amongst the top seven user countries.

He claimed that the platform had been used transgressing Islamic norms by disseminating anti-Islamic, anti-prophet and his companions, vulgar, indecent, sectarian and disrespectful content, thereby contravening the parameters delineated by the Constitution of Pakistan, PECA, PPC and the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021.

Referring to different past judgements of the superior courts and action taken by the government, Barrister Babar stated that in March 2021 the application was banned by PTA on the order of PHC.

He said that after promises and commitments made by the company, it was allowed to function but it overlooked the necessary measures to curb the actions that violated the laws of Pakistan.

The counsel claimed that TikTok had become a leading actor in disregarding community guidelines as directed and regulated by Pakistan and that factor had been observed and held by PTA and courts of Pakistan from time-to-time.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2024