CHARSADDA: Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party central chairman Afzal Shah Khamosh has condemned the Prevention of Electric Crimes Act, calling it a fascist, oppressive and imperialist law serving the masters.

He insisted that Peca Act had been implemented to legalise state oppression. He expressed these views while talking to mediapersons.

He said that Peca Act 2016 and its recent amendments was the handiwork of a semi-colonial, semi-feudal state that was not only bowing to global imperialism but was also protecting the interests of the establishment and capitalist elite.

This law, he said criminalised the right of the people, especially the youth, workers, farmers and other oppressed segments, to speak the truth. The Act, he said was a conspiracy of imperialist institutions and establishment to strangle public freedoms. “The crisis that the state of Pakistan is facing today is not only economic and political but also ideological,” he said. “The young generation, students, women, workers and other oppressed segments are no longer ready to accept the state narrative,” he warned.

“The main objective of this law is to declare dissent on social media as electronic crime,” he said.

Mr Khamosh insisted that Act was to protect the policies of international imperialist institutions – the World Bank and the IMF – and the interests of local elites. “This law seeks to silence those voices that criticise imperialist intervention and challenge the establishment’s policies,” he said.

Afzal Khamosh said that the Pakistan Mazdoor Party clearly understood that the Peca Act was not only undemocratic but also anti-people and a legal cloak for class oppression.

This law, he said was one of the instruments of fascism that the capitalist state adopted out of fear of popular uprisings.

“The law should be repealed, all arrested journalists, student and social media activists should be released immediately, state surveillance and censorship on social media should be abolished, false cases of cyber terrorism against national liberation movements should be closed,” he said, adding that the law cannot stop the revolutionary struggle of workers, farmers, women and other deprived and oppressed classes.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2025