PTA to take action against social media activists who ‘maligned’ Dua Zahra’s family

Dua Zahra’s trial is not hidden from anyone and it has gone public. Many media activists played a key role in defaming Dua’s family and passed bad remarks about them. Sindh High Court on Monday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to take action against these six media activists who defamed Dua Zahra’s family.

The  legal action has been taken after Dua’s father, Syed Mehdi Ali Kazmi put allegations over airing hateful statements against his family. The six accused media activists have been restrained from making and airing digital videos and written material and have also been told that any of such  actions will have severe legal consequences.

The plaintiff had filed an FIR against the kidnapping and child marriage of his daughter under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Rules. He stated that the medical board constituted under the court’s order also declared that the age of his daughter was between 15 and 16 years and hence the girl should come back home. Though it was a private matter the media gave it hype and the social media activists made things worse by adding bad comments against Dua Zahra’s family.

The counsel argued that all the content made by the suspects was based on insulting, baseless and disgraceful material against the plaintiff and his entire family which is damaging the respect and name of the family in society.

PTA was approached to either block or remove private channels from social media which helped these bad people in issuing scandalous and malicious content against the plaintiff and his family. He noted that the PTA’s web analysis division had said that the details are less and thus the complaint was not entertained under Rule (I) (v) under the removal and blocking of unlawful online content (procedure, oversight, and safeguards) rules 2021.

The committee was formed which was headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi gave the final verdict that PTA must take action against social media activists on bad remarks toward Dua’s family.

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