What happened: On Feb 19, Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Husain took to his Twitter account where he stated that two laws have been sent to the cabinet for approval, one of them being a bill to make defamation on social media a ‘punishable offense.’ Details: Pakistan’s government has already attempted to implement new Internet restrictions, which critics claim will give the government broad censorship powers whereas the government claims that it has no plans to control the media or political opponents through such means. The offense: According to Law Minister Farogh Naseem, the new proposed law will call for a non-bailable offense, “Instead of three years in prison, the sentence would be five years, and spreading fake news will be a non-bailable offense,” Naseem added that there will be no exceptions and applied to every citizen, “Anyone could criticise policies and prominent figures while staying within the constitutional bounds, but no “fake news” should be used to defame anyone.” The opposition: Senator Sherry Rehman of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party called out the law under process via tweet, “The government is utilising another presidential ordinance to change cybercrime laws that would be vast and severe in scope in order to further suppress opposition.”