Why Pakistan’s cybersecurity law will not help women journalists

With new amendments already reported by International IDEA that negatively impact Pakistan’s GSoD indices of Rights and Participation, one thing is for certain: When it comes to ending TFGBV against women journalists, the PECA does more harm than good.

TFGBV is defined by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as “An act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated and amplified in part or fully by the use of information and communication technologies or digital media against a person on the basis of their gender.” Examples of TFGBV include cyberstalking, hate speech, doxing, and defamation, and the primary perpetrators and victims of TFGBV are men. Approximately 67 per cent of women worldwide have experienced TFGBV in some capacity. This percentage increases to 73 per cent for women journalists.

Following the global trend, in Pakistan, TFGBV is more prevalent among women who are also journalists. The struggle of having to operate in a patriarchal society in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, while constituting only 5 per cent of the journalist population, makes being a woman journalist in Pakistan extremely difficult and more susceptible to TFGBV. With every article, news report, and broadcast, women journalists risk being attacked for simply trying to do their job; and, unlike their male counterparts, these attacks on women journalists are immensely personal, targeting their sexuality, bodies, and looks.

“I see my male counterparts — they’re also abused, but not abused for their bodies or their genital parts,” then 44-year-old Pakistani television host and anchorperson, Gharidah Farooqi, told the Washington Post. “If they’re attacked, they’re just targeted for their political views. When a woman is attacked, she’s attacked about her body parts.”

When talking about her own experiences with TFGBV, Farooqi shared that she would receive rape and death threats and find fake images of her performing sexual acts on pornographic websites and social media platforms—a common tactic used by attackers to undermine the reputations of women journalists. Many other women journalists in Pakistan share experiences similar to Farooqi's.

With perpetrators ranging from passionate government apologists to corrupt government officials, the attacks on women journalists that occur after they report on political matters are particularly vile. Not only do they cause women journalists acute psychological damage (i.e. anxiety, PTSD, and depression), but, oftentimes, they also succeed in silencing women journalists’ voices: their primary objective.

“I was scared of promoting my own work because of this barrage of accounts tagging me constantly, these relentless notifications accusing me of spreading fake news, accusing me of taking bribes from opposition parties, accusing me of being biased,” Pakistani journalist, Ramsha Jahangir told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) after she was viciously attacked for a report she did for Dawn News about political party, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). “So I stopped sharing my story, because it wasn’t worth it.”

From declining mental health to self-censorship, the negative impacts of TFGBV against women journalists in Pakistan are why a robust cybercrime law is needed. The PECA was supposed to be that law, but, so far, it has failed ... miserably.

Since its enactment, human rights organizations worldwide have accused the PECA of restricting press freedom. They claim that the PECA’s usage of vague language makes it easy for the Pakistani government to target those who speak out against it and the military. These claims are not without evidence, as journalists (men and women alike) are being arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for disseminating “fake news.” That said, the government’s use of the PECA to legally silence critics arguably enables TFGBV against women journalists.

“First government officials target you, calling your tweet ‘fake news’ or accusing you of being ‘an enemy of the people’ or a ‘lifafa’ journalist (one who takes bribes),” Geo News TV reporter Benazir Shah told Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “Then, after the official harassment, you are bombarded with abusive language by other people displaying the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party flag or Prime Minister Imran Khan’s photo on their Twitter accounts.”

This past January, Pakistan’s parliament enacted new amendments to the PECA, but it will be of no surprise if the amendments also enable TFGBV against women journalists: this time, however, by preventing women journalists from speaking out against online violence.

Aiming to criminalize the spread of "fake news,” without clear definitions of what constitutes “fake news,” the amendments allow for women journalists who share their experiences with TFGBV to be reported by perpetrators for spreading false information (a situation that has happened before under PECA’s unconstitutional Section 20 which criminalized the dissemination of “false” and “harmful” information). If women are found guilty of spreading false information, they can face up to three years of imprisonment. This punishment for speaking out against TFGBV effectively turns the law that was supposed to protect women journalists against them instead. That said, women journalists are already hesitant to speak about TFGBV, but the new amendments can completely prevent them from doing so. If women stop talking about TFGBV, it will allow TFGBV to continue in digital spaces as it goes unaccounted for.

It is clear from the beginning that the PECA is a law used by the Pakistani government to silence dissenters under the guise of promoting cybersecurity. From the outset, the implementation of PECA has raised concerns about its potential use by the Pakistani government to curb dissent, and it is this hidden agenda that facilitates TFGBV against women journalists. As the new PECA amendments continue to develop, one can expect a subsequent increase in TFGBV against women journalists. In the end, the PECA’s failure to protect women journalists demands for major reforms by the Pakistani government. Women journalists deserve their right to freedom of the press and speech without the fear of violence.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the institutional position of International IDEA, its Board of Advisers or its Council of Member States.
 

Additional reading: How women politicians of Fiji are treated on Facebook (2022)