The PCP told the authorities that the freedom of press, free flow of information and right to know is the fundamental right of every citizen of Pakistan guaranteed under Article 19 & 19-A of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It said no one has right to force or put pressure in any way on the media to toe his line and to get news of his choice. It said the freedom of press is to be ensured at every cost.

Under sub-section 1(i) of Section 8 of the PCP Ordinance, the freedom of press is to be preserved. Similarly, under sub-section 2 of Section 8 of the PCP Ordinance, 2002, it is statutory obligation of the PCP “to act as a shield to freedom of press or against any sort of interference in the proper functioning of the press, by any person, party or organisation etc”. Attacks on the media are not only condemnable but are also tantamount to causing interference in the dissemination of information to the general public. Such action is not a good sign and cannot be justified in democratic norms and culture.The PCP requested the concerned authorities to take appropriate action in the matter and provide proper security to media houses.

The News

The draft “Right to Information Act, 2014”, a copy of which is available with The News, not only binds the government to share information about its working but also enables media and general public to get verified information about the functioning of Parliament, members of Parliament, judiciary and even non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Parliamentary sources told The News that the ruling PML-N has agreed to adopt the amended draft law as a government bill, which will soon be presented before the federal cabinet for its final endorsement prior to presenting it in Parliament. In 2013, the PML-N government had drafted a freedom of information law, which came under heavy criticism for being too restrictive and toothless.

But the current draft is being hailed by the experts as one of the best laws in the world as it incorporates all the good features from the RTI laws of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Punjab, which are already enforced in these two provinces.

The draft law also includes a provision to protect the whistleblowers, a feature missing in the Punjab Freedom of Information Act 2013. The federal law strengthens the penalty for non-provision of information while the time limit for the government to respond has also been reduced from 14 days in the provincial laws to 10 days in the federal law.

The introduction to the law states: “Whereas it is expedient to provide for a law which gives effect to the human right to information, as guaranteed under international law and by Article 19A of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, whereby everyone shall have the right to have access to all information held by public bodies subject only to reasonable restrictions as established by law, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.”

The law will apply on all “public bodies” which include government institutions and functionaries, members of Parliament, National Assembly and Senate secretariats, courts, tribunals, commission, autonomous bodies and even the NGOs which are getting direct or indirect funding from the government.

Under the draft law, these public bodies will be required to respond to an information request about their functioning within a period of 10 working days after the request is lodged by an applicant with their designated information officials. “Each public body shall, within forty-five days of coming into force of this Act, notify one or more designated officials, not below the rank of BPS-19 or equivalent: Provided that where no designated official has been notified or he is absent or not available, principal officer of the public body shall be the designated official,” section 7 of the draft law states.

These designated officials will not only be responsible for provision of information to the applicants but they will also assist applicant in drafting their requests.

The draft law also calls for the formulation of “Pakistan Information Commission”, an independent statutory body to facilitate the implementation of law in letter and spirit. “The Information Commission shall also have the power to conduct inquiries, in relation to either an appeal or on its own initiative in relation to other matters connected with the proper implementation of this Act, and when conducting such an inquiry the Information Commission shall have the powers of a Civil Court,” says the draft.

The commission will also create awareness about the right to information through various measures and it will be empowered to set and define rules for the implementation of the act.

The law also specifies punishments for the violators. “Anyone who acts willfully to obstruct the implementation of this Act by: (a) obstructing access to any information or record with a view to preventing the exercise of a right provided for in this Act; (b) obstructing the performance by a public body of a duty under this Act; (c) interfering with the work of the Information Commission; or (d) destroying a record without lawful authority; shall be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty-five thousand rupees.

The commission of serious and repeated wilful acts to obstruct the right to information under this Act shall be a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or with a fine of up to one hundred thousand rupees or with both.

The draft law protects the whistleblowers. “No one may be subject to any legal, administrative or employment-related sanction, regardless of any breach of a legal or employment obligation, for releasing information on wrongdoing, or which would disclose a serious threat to health, safety or the environment, as long as they acted in good faith and in the reasonable belief that the information was substantially true and disclosed evidence of wrongdoing or a serious threat to health, safety or the environment.”

After promulgation of the RTI Act 2014, the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002 (XCVI of 2002) would be repealed.

The law also specifies exempted information, which includes information that could harm Pakistan’s national security, law and order and international relations. It also protects privacy of individuals and commercial interests of third parties with some legal exceptions. The information may also be exempt if its disclosure would be likely to endanger the life, health or safety of any individual.

The law further states that exceptions shall cease to apply after a period of fifteen years, provided that this may be extended, in exceptional cases, for up to a maximum of another fifteen years, with the approval of the Information Commission.

When contacted, Senator Farhatullah Babar, a member of the Senate standing committee on information and broadcasting and national heritage which finalised the draft on July 15 said several key amendments have been made to the previous Right to Information Bill 2013 which was proposed by the government.

He said the act shall come into force at once and not on “a date to be notified separately by the government” as proposed in the previous draft. The PPP Senator said the composition of the Information Commission has been altered. Previously it was proposed that only a retired judge could head the commission but the Senate committee had changed the condition.

“No sane person will subscribe to the view that judges alone are the repositories of truth, wisdom, integrity and competence to be necessarily placed on the Information Commission and no one else can be placed on it. The job of an Information Commissioner is such that it does not require that one should be or have been a judge. A competent journalist and media person of integrity or a retired bureaucrat or any other professional may even be more suitable for the job,” Babar said.

“Judges are honourable men and women but let us not forget that that there are outstanding men and women in other walks of life too who areno less honourable and who can make even better Information Commissioner than a judge,” he added.

Babar said his views have been suitably incorporated in the draft finalised last month. He said Parliament too has been given a limited role in nominating a member of the commission. He said although the draft law was finalised by representatives of various political parties including PPP, MQM, PML-Q, ANP, PKMAP and PML-N, the committee has agreed that it will be a government bill and all these parties will support it in Parliament.

“The finalised version should be made available to the Senate Committee during the current session of the Senate starting tomorrow after which the process to lay it as government Bill will begin,” he said.

The civil society organisations are also all praise for the draft law.“This is one of the best RTI laws in the world as it incorporates all the good features from the past laws,” said Zahid Abdullah from Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI).

He said the draft law is even better than the RTI laws of KPK and Punjab.

“The list of exempted information is small and clear so everyone knows which information can be obtained,” he added.He said punishments under the draft law are strong enough to deter any government official from withholding information.

The News

Everything had been done by the book up until the commissioners came into post, and they had a reasonable expectation that there would be an office established, equipped appropriately and they would then set about framing the rules under which the Act would operate. The latest information — from an unnamed official keen to stay out of the spotlight — says that a summary regarding the budget for the commission was ‘pending’ and is currently with the finance department. This is the bureaucratic equivalent of saying that matters have been kicked into the long grass somewhere in an alternative reality. The ball now sits in the court of the Information Department. The government is clearly in violation of its own rules; namely clause-7 of the RTI Act of 2013 which states that a public body shall, within 60 days, put in place the machinery for implementation of the law. This is a classic example of political tardiness in play when potentially discomfiting legislation, correctly tabled, debated and passed, is set to hit the ground running. This situation needs to be remedied on an urgent basis; there is simply no good reason for delay.

Express Tribune

This has raised questions about the establishment of the Punjab Information Commission (PIC), and the three information commissioners tasked with implementing the Act.

The Punjab Assembly passed the RTI Bill 2013 on December 13, 2013. The bill became an act after the governor approved it on December 16.

The information commissioners appointed on March 5, have reportedly been running from pillar to post to arrange offices for themselves so they can implement the Act.

The government appointed Additional Inspector General Ahmed Raza Tahir and Mukhtar Ahmad Ali as information commissioners, and Justice (r) Mazhar Hussain Minhas the chief information commissioner.

The appointments were made in line with clause five of the RTI Act 2013. The clause states that the PIC should have an office to start its operations, implement the act and frame rules under the Act.

Several government officials have revealed that the three commissioners are in quandary as they have no funds at their disposal to set up offices and implement the Act.

The notification of their appointment had been issued only to fulfil official procedures, said the officials. They said the commissioners had been asked to stay at home and keep drawing salaries until a further directive.

Officials requesting anonymity said that the information secretary had informed the three commissioners that a summary regarding the budget for the commission was pending with the Finance Department.

A senior government officer said that instead of empowering the PIC, the provincial government was relying on the Information Department.

“Allocating and approving budget is only a matter of two days. Six months have passed since the Act was introduced but the government has not allocated a single penny for the PIC. This shows that the commission is not the government’s priority,” the officer told The Express Tribune.

He said the chief minister was assisted by his Press Secretary Shoaib Bin Aziz, Information Secretary Momin Agha and Director General Public Relations Athar Ali Khan.

He said the government was delaying funds for the PIC on purpose.

The government has also violated clause 7 of the RTI Act 2013 which states a public body “shall within 60 days of the commencement of this Act designate and notify as many officers as public information officers in all administrative units or offices under it, as may be necessary”.

Currently, the government has notified only 50 public information officers for Lahore. Other districts in the province await appointment of information officers.

Momin Agha declined comment. He said he was busy at a meeting.

PML-N Parliamentary Secretary on Information Rana Arshad said that the party had always favoured transparency and merit. He said he would place the matter before the chief minister.

Mukhtar Ahmad Ali said 50 public information officers had been trained by the Management and Professional Development Department. They would serve in Lahore, he said.

He said officers from other districts would also be trained after the month of Ramazan. He admitted he had no staff to implement the Act.

Express Tribune

He was chairing the first ‘RTI Baithak’ organized by Beacon house University on ‘Role of Civil Society in making Government system transparent’. He said that it is a general practice that budgets are formulated without consultation with the stakeholders and when budget is announced, people start hue and cry and then issues are re-examined and discussed. However, for the first time the Government has been consulting all stakeholders in budget formulation. He hoped that this time budget will be comparatively better and reflective of the aspirations of the people as well as the business community.

He said that today’s ‘RTI Baithak’ is also a positive step in bringing transparency in Government Departments as tax payers have the right to know where their money is being spent. He demanded that entire Government system should be computerized and replaced with e-governance system as it was impossible for any Government to have direct access to the each and every person. He said that Punjab Board of Information Technology is already working on this pattern and record of some of the Government Departments has also been computerized that is available on their website.

Zafar Dogar a senior journalist expressed its apprehension about the exemptions provided in the Act and said that in general practice these exemptions are being allowed to nullify the benefits of such important law.

Zaeem Yaqoob Khan , Director, Beacon house National University said that Beacon house University has already conduced three Baithak in Lahore for the sensitization of civil society in addition to bringing positive improvement in this Act Now three sittings are being held in Faisalabad followed by two in Multan and another three to be conducted in Lahore. We are preparing Logo and Video documentaries on the benefits of this Act and all these will be provided to the Information Commission to facilitate to start working in effective and efficient manner.

Business Recorder

A statement issued by CRCP secretary general Mian Abrar Hafeez praised the committee and the information ministry for including almost all proposals presented by the commission during a recent roundtable discussion on the Federal Right to Information (RTI) Bill and the role of ombudsmen.

Keeping in view the poor state of governance, transparency and accountability, all provinces should take steps to enact effective RTI laws.

He said Sindh and Balochistan should follow the precedent set by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and now the centre by amending old and ineffective laws.

Mian Abrar said the right to information law was a strong tool to improve governance, eradicate corruption and enhance transparency and accountability.

Proper implementation of RTI laws could help free flow of information and facilitate citizens’ meaningful involvement in decision-making, he said. He urged civil society and the media to join hands to make the RTI regime successful.

DAWN

Conflict and other forms of hazardous reporting are not new in this part of the world, and journalists here have been exposed to the perils of the profession since long. It is unfortunate that media organisations have not given due importance to the sensitivities associated with such reporting.

With extremists often suspecting journalists of having links with their enemy, and because of the dynamics of the job itself, including the blind competition for breaking news, media personnel are easy targets. For instance, in the race to be the first to cover a blast, journalists expose themselves to a second blast at the site. In Quetta last year, three media workers lost their lives in twin blasts. Unfortunately, that critical balance between the right to know and the right to life is often disturbed because of media rivalries.

When a journalist is killed or a media house attacked, the media focuses on the story, thus multiplying its effects, which is what the militants want in order to capture world attention.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) since 1992 in Pakistan, 72 journalists have been killed. The motive behind 54 of these killings has been ascertained; however, the motive behind the rest remains shrouded in mystery. Of the journalists killed, about 39pc were covering conflict, 15pc corruption and 13pc human rights issues. Some 56pc of the dead journalists were associated with the print media and 4pc were foreign journalists.

Since 1992, Sindh has registered 18, Balochistan 17, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 16, Fata 10, Punjab seven and the federal capital three cases. Attacks on press clubs have also claimed lives as the one on the Peshawar and Khuzdar press clubs some years ago.

Conflict reporting requires special skills and experience, and only the trained and experienced should be allowed to do it, that too with the paraphernalia needed for war zones including bullet-proof jackets and helmets. Moreover, it is critical to arrange insurance covering disability and death.

International humanitarian organisations like the Red Cross offer hotline facilities to the families of reporters who may have disappeared in conflict areas. This international involvement helps maintain transparency where local law enforcement is concerned. A threat assessment needs to be carried out by the police and security alerts should be communicated to the potential targets. Therefore more coordination between the police and media is needed.

To ensure the safety and welfare of journalists, the government intends to constitute a commission comprising journalists, public figures and government representatives. The commission will make suggestions on how to monitor the prosecution of crimes against journalists. According to the CPJ, in nine out of 10 cases in which journalists are killed, the perpetrators go free. But the recent conviction in the Wali Babar case has increased confidence in the criminal justice system.

Life insurance for journalists and compensation to the heirs of those killed in Fata and the federal capital is also under consideration by the federal government. To enhance security levels, in consultation with media representatives there is a move to work out a security plan to secure press clubs and media houses.

There is a growing demand that the cases of killings of journalists should be handled by special prosecutors and tried by anti-terrorism courts.

To ensure a safe working environment for journalists, in 2006 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1738. Last November, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the safety of journalists and also proclaimed Nov 2 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. Earlier, in 2012 a UN plan on the safety of journalists was adopted. For the purposes of this plan, five countries viz South Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nepal and Mexico were selected.

The UN plan expects that the selected countries will ensure the need for legislation to protect freedom of expression through improved investigation and prosecution of crimes against journalists. The plan also envisages a safety fund for journalists working in conflict areas. In Pakistan, to augment such measures, uniform compensation needs to be worked out by all provinces, and conflict reporting taught as a subject at the university level.

Meanwhile, reporters must respect the ‘yellow police tape’ at the scene of a crime. This will not only protect lives but also keep circumstantial evidence intact. To draft and enforce a code of ethics it is imperative to have a professional institutional relationship between the police and media groups.

The writer is a deputy inspector general of the police. alibabakhel@hotmail.com

DAWN

ISLAMABAD: There is no foolproof way to block access to a video that resulted in the ban on YouTube in Pakistan, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Dr Ismail Shah. Dr Shah’s statement on Monday came a day before the Lahore High Court hears a petition seeking the court’s directive to the government to allow access to YouTube, blocked since September 2012.

The court will hear a petition filed by Bytes for All, a non-government organisation. The petitioner submitted that any filtering and blocking of information online is counter-productive and predatory. Dr Shah and officials from the ministry of information and technology will appear in court today to give a policy statement on whether the offending video – entitled The Innocence of Muslims – can be blocked.

“The PTA has tried to find a technical solution to block the video while keeping YouTube open, but it is next to impossible and this is what I will inform the court,” said Dr Shah, while addressing the first national 3G/4G seminar, held in Islamabad. The PTA can create a warning page that opens prior to the video, he suggested.

Shah said the video was uploaded on hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPs) – a communication protocol over a computer network which cannot be removed except by blocking the website. Shah will inform the court that the PTA cannot remove the video because of technical obstacles. At the end of the day, he said, the government and court will have to make a decision.

“We have looked into practices in other Muslim countries as well and found that they too could not block the video,” he said. He explained that the video is accessible in Qatar, preceded by a warning, a system that Pakistan could replicate. “Even if it is not available on YouTube, it will be available on other websites,” the chairman said. According to the PTA’s findings, there are 48,000 copies of the video accessible online currently. He explained that the Pakistani government had contacted Google Inc in order to remove the offending video, but was refused.

Dr Shah added that religious scholars had advised him that the government’s current strategy was wrong, prescribing that messages and videos spreading a positive message of Islam should be uploaded to counter negative portrayals.

3G Auction

While bidding for the auction of 3G and 4G licences will take part next month, Dr Shah said he was not confident of any new entrants taking part in the process. He said new entrants were requesting conditions such as a period of one year in which existing bidders should be barred from rolling out 3G services in the market, aimed at allowing new entrants time to gain a foothold in the market. “My assessment is that it will be difficult for a new player to enter the process,” he said.

Express Tribune

Classical ballet has always been popular with our daughter. She will watch it for hours, imitating the dancers with a developing confidence and awareness of the storylines of the more popular ballets, with Swan Lake being the long-time favourite. For the umpteenth time, we watched the finale and compared different ballet companies’ versions of the choreography. All very innocent and culturally uplifting –– but possibly dangerous.

We watched Swan Lake on YouTube, an internet source currently blocked by the government. We watched via a proxy –– that I will not name here –– that masked the IP address of my computer and created a spoof address, thus fooling its way around the government ban and giving me and Miss N the chance to enjoy the thrill of seeing the Sorcerer vanquished once again. She is also quite partial to dinosaurs doing extremely unpleasant things to other dinosaurs, flatulent babies and cats up to all manner of tricks.

For my own part, I have used YouTube as a research tool in my daily work, accessing news clips globally, checked out some paint schemes on a model airplane I am building and caught up with the latest clips from the Berlin Philharmonic. Hardly the cutting edge of subversion, is it? Nor is it illegal.

So far as I can determine, I am not breaking any law by finding a workaround for the YouTube ban, and the only law I just might have broken was a presidential ordinance that expired in 2007. The government does not appear to have invoked any piece of legislation beyond some vague references to the blasphemy laws, and the ban is based upon the entirely subjective whim of the government of the day.

It was ordered in the wake of the rumpus about the YouTube posting of a blasphemous video clip. Whilst undoubtedly blasphemous and abhorrent, but no less abhorrent than the beheadings filmed by assorted militant groups and then posted to YouTube.

It must be noted that the beheadings videos predated the posting of the blasphemous clip, yet the government of the day saw no reason to block YouTube on the grounds that it was promoting hatred.
The internet is awash with blasphemy and hate speech, and after some extensive checking in the last few days, it seems that YouTube is one of many offenders in this respect.

The offensive clip has been removed from YouTube as the result of a case brought by an actress who appeared in it –– who maintained that her performance had been misused and dialogues –– that she did not say –– dubbed into her mouth. Google, the parent company of YouTube, says it will fight the ban on the grounds that it is an impediment to freedom of speech and there are going to be lawyers rubbing their hands together at the possibility of a long-running and complex case.

So where have we got to in Pakistan? The government is slowly picking off the proxy sites that enable the workaround, despite which many millions of people simply find a proxy that is working and carry on YouTube-ing as before. So far as I am aware, there has been no attempt to prosecute anybody doing this, and it would be on very shaky legal grounds if such an attempt were to be made. Government agencies are said to harass some of those who circumvent the ban (no… not me… not yet) and there are persistent rumours that sites such as Skype are to be interdicted. Skype connections are all encrypted and thus difficult for the government to monitor traffic or listen in on.

The YouTube ban has achieved nothing more than the appeasement of some particularly excitable extremists. That it persists now makes it sinister rather than pointless. Right… back to Swan Lake. Tootle-pip.

Express Tribune

Sahibzada Muhammad Khalid, a grade 22 official who resigned from the K-P Public Service Commission earlier this week, has been appointed for three years. This period starts from the date of his taking office as outlined by Section 24 of the RTI Act, read the official statement.

The search committee, which will decide two other ‘commissioners’ was also announced. K-P Chief Secretary Arbab Shahzad will serve as the chairman of the committee. Justice (retd) Abdul Aziz Kundi, University of Engineering and Technology Vice Chancellor Syed Imtaiz Hussain Gillani and Rahimullah Yousafzai were announced as members. K-P Secretary Information will serve as secretary to the committee.

The search committee will ensure merit based appointments, mindful of the criteria for the commissioner jobs, within 30 days, added the handout. The eligibility for commissioners set under Section 24 of the RTI Act states one of the members needs to be an advocate of the high court or Supreme Court who is qualified to be a judge at the high court. The second member will be from the civil society and should have no less than 15 years of experience.

The act has a deadline of 120 days to appoint the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Commission after its commencement.

The RTI bill was unanimously passed by the K-P Assembly on October 31 and was sent to the office of Governor Shaukatullah Khan to sign. Speaking to The Express Tribune, Spokesperson for Chief Minister Shiraz Paracha confirmed the governor had signed the act and therefore, appointments had been made.

Express Tribune