IHC orders PTA, Pemra and NCCIA to report on enforcement of online harassment laws
File photo: social media app icons on a smartphone screen (mikemacmarketing, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0). The photo shows the platforms whose content enforcement the court order concerns; it is not a photo of the court.
The Islamabad High Court has ordered comprehensive reports on how the laws against online harassment, blackmail and the unauthorised circulation of private material are actually being enforced. A single bench of Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir issued the interim order on a petition filed by Dr Raana Ahsan, directing the federal government, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) to file their reports. The court fixed the next hearing for 23 November 2026.
What the court said
The bench observed that the petition raises substantial questions of public importance: online safety, the misuse of electronic, digital and broadcast media, the effectiveness of the existing regulatory machinery, and the protection of citizens’ fundamental rights. The order is careful about its own reach. It says the directions are meant to make implementation of the law effective, and that nothing in them requires any authority to act beyond its statutory mandate or to disregard procedural safeguards.
What the PTA’s own figures show
Annexed to the order is a PTA report that measures enforcement from the inside, and it makes uneven reading. Compliance with requests to block unlawful content stood at 59.01 percent for material relating to Pakistan’s security and defence, 79.51 percent for terrorism-related content, 76.28 percent for contempt of court, 76.54 percent for content against the glory of Islam, just 40.38 percent for defamation or impersonation, 98.91 percent for decency and morality, and 67.43 percent for sectarian or hate speech. One newspaper put the last figure at 64.43 percent; the difference has not been reconciled publicly.
How the platforms responded
Platform by platform, compliance was 48.42 percent on X, 78.57 percent on Facebook, 79.52 percent on Instagram, 87.34 percent on YouTube and 88.68 percent on TikTok. The PTA told the court that since the relevant rules were notified in October 2021, social media companies have been asked to meet registration requirements and appoint local compliance and grievance officers, and no affirmative response has been received. In practice, the regulator said, it has been confined to approaching operators for content removal or taking technical measures against their services, and operators frequently decline requests by citing their own community guidelines.
What happens next
The court directed the interior secretary to convene a meeting of the Ministry of Information Technology, Pemra, the PTA, the NCCIA and other relevant ministries and departments, to identify where coordination is failing, clarify each body’s statutory responsibilities, and devise a coordinated enforcement mechanism, including what legal remedies are open against platforms that do not comply. A joint report with an implementation timetable must then go back to the court.
