On 13 October 2026, Pakistan's National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) produced Awam Raj Tehreek chief Iqrar-ul-Hassan before the Judicial Magistrate Karachi East-I. He had been arrested in Lahore. ARY News reported that he was booked under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) in Case No. 101/2026 and handed to the agency on four days' physical remand. The case concerns posts on X, Instagram and Facebook that the complaint calls false, anti-state and defamatory. None of this has been tested at trial. The case is still useful because it shows how the 2025 PECA amendments work when applied to a commentator.
The strongest case for the law
The government's argument deserves a fair statement. Pakistan has faced real harms from online falsehoods, including rumours that provoke panic, fabricated content that incites violence, and coordinated harassment. The Interior Ministry says the new offence is narrow. Digital Rights Foundation reports that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the National Assembly that 187 cases had been registered under the amended Act for intentionally spreading false information online. The ministry also says every case undergoes due process and judicial review. A dedicated agency with trained investigators is better than the older arrangement, in which cybercrime complaints often went unanswered. Seen this way, a magistrate reviewing a remand request is the safeguard working as designed.
What the 2025 amendments actually do
Dawn reported in January 2025 that President Asif Ali Zardari had assented to the amendments. They introduced Section 26(A), under which anyone who intentionally disseminates false information likely to cause fear, panic or unrest faces up to three years in prison, a fine of Rs2 million, or both. They also replaced the FIA's cybercrime wing with the NCCIA and created a Social Media Regulation and Protection Authority, a complaint council and a tribunal.
Bolo Bhi director Usama Khilji, writing in Dawn, identifies the structural problems. Section 26-A punishes "false or fake information" without defining what that means. The amendment makes Section 20, the criminal defamation provision the Islamabad High Court struck down in 2022, cognisable and non-bailable. It also widens who can lodge a complaint to any person "having substantial reasons to believe" an offence has been committed. Each change alone could be defended. Together they give any aggrieved party a way to trigger arrest without a bail right.
How the process works in this case
The sequence in the Iqrar-ul-Hassan matter shows the cost. He was arrested in Lahore's DHA and brought to Karachi around 1am, according to ARY. Under the four-day remand, investigators held him in their custody before any charge was tested. ARY later reported that on 19 October the magistrate rejected the NCCIA's request for more physical remand and sent him to jail on judicial remand, and directed the agency to submit its challan within 14 days. On 22 October the Judicial Magistrate-East rejected his bail plea, and the defence said it would approach the Sindh High Court.
The magistrate did decline further physical remand, which is a meaningful check. But the process had already imposed most of the punishment. A commentator spent more than a week in custody, in a city away from his home, over posts whose falsity no court has decided. The case reports do not give the specific PECA sections charged, and that gap matters. When the public cannot tell which of the Act's offences is alleged, they cannot judge whether the speech in question falls within the narrow category the ministry describes.
Why this matters beyond one politician
Pecuniary penalties and prison terms for "false" speech assume that someone can reliably separate false from contested, and that the state is the right referee. In political commentary that assumption fails. Opinions about government conduct, security policy and institutions are often framed as factual claims, and the party being criticised decides whether a claim is "anti-state". Khilji notes that over 90 countries have decriminalised defamation. Pakistan's trajectory runs the other way.
The practical effects fall on people who are not defendants. Journalists and ordinary users learn from each arrest that a post can lead to a remand hearing in a distant city. Platforms face growing pressure to remove content pre-emptively. Investors in Pakistan's digital economy, which the government wants to expand, see a legal environment where a speech-related complaint can reach the criminal courts quickly.
A proportionate alternative
None of this requires Pakistan to tolerate harmful disinformation. A proportionate regime would do four things:
- Define "false information" narrowly, tied to demonstrable, imminent harm such as incitement to violence, rather than to "fear" or "unrest".
- Return defamation to civil law, with remedies such as correction, apology and damages, and remove the non-bailable status of Section 20.
- Require judicial authorisation before any arrest in a speech case, and cap physical remand to what is needed to preserve electronic evidence.
- Publish the sections charged, the outcome of each case, and the acquittal rate for cases under Section 26(A), so that the 187-case figure can be evaluated.
The High Court challenges to Section 26(A) are the likeliest route to correction. Until a court rules, the Iqrar-ul-Hassan case is a reference point. Whatever the merits of the allegations against him, the process shows that PECA's speech provisions let the state arrest first and establish falsity afterwards.