the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for tweeting against the judiciary following a tweet in which he had shared a wedding invitation card to demonstrate conflict of interest29 in a judgment. While the framing of the charge dealt with tweeting against the judiciary, the law used to initiate the charge was not the Contempt of Court Act, but the Electronic Transactions Ordinance (ETO).30 Article 36 of the ETO, which was used to initiate the action states: Any person who gains or attempts to gain access to any information system with or without intent to acquire the information contained therein or to gain knowledge of such information, whether or not he is aware of the nature or contents of such information, when he is not authorised to gain access, as aforesaid, shall be guilty of an offence under this Ordinance punishable with either description of a term not exceeding seven years, or fine which may extend to one million rupees, or with both. For what actually constitutes contempt with regard to speech, Justice Shabir Ahmed in the State vs Abdur Rehman31 held: It is not everything said or written against a Judge that amounts to contempt of court and it is only such utterances or writings which are calculated to bring a Court or a Judge of Court into contempt or to lower his authority or such utterances or writings which are calculated to construct or interfere with the due course of justice or the lawful process that amount to it. Sedition Sedition has been defined in Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code: 124-A – Sedition. Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Federal or Provincial Government established by law shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine. 29 The judge who had granted bail to the accused in a corruption case was the mother-in-law of the accused. 30 Akbar, A. (2015, 28 October). FIA arrests PTI activist for “tweeting against judiciary”. Dawn.com. https://www.dawn.com/ news/1215966 31 1957 PLD (W. p.) Baghdad-ul-Jadid 6. An interesting case evoking charges of sedition is Ali Raza vs Federation of Pakistan32 brought before Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kyani. The case was registered for the putting up of posters in the Federal Capital that seemingly called for the imposition of martial law. The posters displayed a glamorous picture of then Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, along with the caption: “Education, health, peace, move on Pakistan.” The initial case was brought forward after a police officer filed an FIR on grounds of sedition and conspiracy against the state, stating that the posters appear to call for one institution to take charge of other democratic institutions. In this case, the court held that “private persons cannot agitate the matter regarding sedition charges, rather it should be initiated, inquired and investigated by the Government or at least on their instruction.” The court also held that there must be a clear call for rebellion or promotion of feeling of enmity, hatred or ill will between different religious groups, or racial or linguistic or regional groups or castes. The judgment also holds that in matters of sedition, the court “has to consider the speech in a free, fair and liberal spirit and not in a narrow minded or sectarian way.” The judgment also quotes a previous judgment of Sindh High Court, 2010 YLR 1647 Flt. Lt. (Dr) Shariq Saeed vs Mansoob Ali Khan and five others: The right of free speech extends to all subjects which affect ways of life without limitation of any particular fact human interest and include in the main term “freedom of expression”. Moreover the right to freedom of speech and expression carries with it the right to publish and circulate one’s ideas through any available means of publication. The inclusion of the reference to the right being applied to “any means of publication” is important in this regard as the offending posters on which the writ petition was initiated were also circulated widely through social media. There are no prominent cases in which sedition charges have been applied to speech/expression that was exclusively online. However, if one sees seditious speech as largely being anti-state speech, there are examples in which such material has been blocked. A look at a Facebook transparency report demonstrates that the state regularly gets “anti-state” content that is critical of the state33 removed from the social media platform. Some of the content has been removed for condemnation 32 2017 PLD 64 Islamabad. 33 https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/Pakistan/2013-H2 110 / Unshackling Expression