Pakistan steps up war against online terror

“Modern tools are now used to promote, recruit and train militants besides funds collection and transfers,” says a 37-page report, “Cultivating Peace National Action Plan,” published by the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) on Dec. 31, 2017, a copy of which was made available to Arab News.
The report claims that the authority has developed a “responsive web portal” to create eyes and ears in the cybersphere to counter radical and extremism ideology.

Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Talpur, a deputy director at NACTA, told Arab News that the report is based on data collected from different sources including provincial governments, law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies.

“The data in this report shows Pakistan has made significant achievements in its fight against terrorism in the past couple of years,” he said.
Talpur said the authority had also prepared a counter extremism policy which, coupled with the achievements made under the National Action Plan as presented in the report, would be made public in the next few days.

The government has listed a number of measures in the report taken to fight terrorism and extremism following the announcement of a 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) in December 2014 after 148 people, including 132 schoolchildren, were killed in a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.
Sadaf Khan, a digital rights activist and director at Media Matters for Democracy, told Arab News that the government was taking “selective action” against the abuse of Internet and social media as “a number of proscribed outfits were still operating their social media accounts and websites with complete impunity.”

“It is important to block all online accounts of individuals and outfits promoting terrorism, but the process should be well defined and transparent,” she said.
Khan said Internet freedom in the country was already facing many challenges and the government should not block genuine websites and social media accounts on the pretext of measures against terrorism.

The reports states that in an array of anti-terrorism measures, the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in March 2015, and since then 483 people have been executed under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 and Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

Eleven special trial courts were also notified under the supervision of the Pakistan army through a constitutional amendment to create deterrence against terrorists and extremists, it said, adding, “the performance of special trial courts is crucial in sentencing terrorists and preventing further promotion of terrorism.”

As a result of the NAP, the government has also registered 1,373 cases of hate speech or publishing hate material, arrested 2,566 persons, and sealed off at least 70 shops across the country, the report says.

To choke funding of the terrorists, the government has cracked down on traditional and non-traditional banking channels that the militants were using to receive and transfer funds.

The government has so far recovered at least 1.5 billion rupees by cracking down on Hawala Hundi, arrested 1,209 persons, and registered 919 cases besides arresting 574 others in anti-money-laundering cases, the report notes.

“Extremists primarily collect money as subscription from sympathizers and criminal activities such as extortion, gunrunning and the narcotics trade,” the report says.

To prevent the re-emergence of proscribed outfits, the government has banned 65 organizations and 8,374 individuals have been placed under the fourth schedule — a provision of law that restricts movement of the suspects.

The report claims the government has frozen 5,089 bank accounts of banned outfits and individuals and seized an amount of 157 million rupees.
To dismantle communication network of terrorists, the government claims to have blocked 98.3 million unregistered and unverified mobile SIMS by regulating use of cellular communication in the country.

“As communication is the backbone of any system, the importance of security communication networks which are not exploited by terrorists cannot be overemphasized,” the report says.

Afzal Ali Shigri, former inspector general of police, told Arab News that the government was trying to play down the threat of terrorism and extremism by releasing such feel-good reports.

“Extremism has penetrated in all the segments of the society in the past few years and this needs to be addressed quickly,” he said, suggesting that religious clerics should be involved in addressing the problem rather than labeling them as part of the problem.