Sherry Rehman lashes out govt for ordinances on social media, election campaigning

ISLAMABAD, Feb 20 (SABAH): Pakistan Peoples Party leader Senator Sherry Rehman on Sunday has slammed the government for cancelling a scheduled session of the National Assembly without an official announcement and planning to promulgate two ordinances regarding election campaigning and social media.

Senator Rehmansaid that the ordinance regarding campaigning would allow government ministers “unprecedented ability to misuse state resources”. She said it showed how “far gone” the government was in its “fear of the people”.

She described the social media laws as “sweeping and draconian” in scope which would be used to further clamp down on dissent.”Make no mistake, this is not about protecting the vulnerable from cyber predations; quite the opposite,” she said.

The changes regarding social media come in the wake of an incident earlier this month that saw a TV programme panel question Prime Minister Imran Khan’s decision to award Communications Minister Murad Saeed the first place among the 10 best performing federal ministries.