President Dr Arif Alvi has termed the incidences of audio leaks as a worrisome trend, adding that leaking private conversations fell within the category of “Gheebat”, which needed to be discouraged. He said that the privacy of every person was a trust which should be upheld, and leaking private conversations or comments and spreading fake news was unethical and it gave rise to fear and anxiety in society.
The President made these remarks while talking to Karachi-based journalists, at Governor House, Karachi, today.
Talking to media persons, the President said that our society was facing an issue of Gheebat and fake news, which in general parlance was a narration of an event out of reference and context. He said that we should exercise self-discipline to not entertain private conversations which sometimes became the reason for deteriorating relationships between people and countries. He said that there had been an increase in information leaks due to the permeation of technology, however, 95% of social media contributed to providing useful knowledge and information whereas only 5% of the social media may be considered to be involved in alleged fake news etc. He said social media should be used to glean the necessary information and knowledge by ignoring and filtering out unnecessary noise. He also emphasized civilized behaviour toward political rivals, especially in the public.
He said that politicians should play their role in making the nation intellectually strong. He said that intellectual strength could make our country strong in a minimum time period rather than brick and mortal model. “The lack of communication, corruption jobbery, and nepotism are evils that every nation should take appropriate action to deal with them for a healthy society”, he added.
He said that the world had made important innovations and progress in Cyber Security which has become an important discipline for the safety and security of any nation. He emphasized that Pakistan needed to take decisive and committed initiatives to adopt cyber security technology to lay down the foundation of stability and progress.
He said that there had been a perception of corruption in the country since its inception, however, proving the cases of white-collar crimes was difficult due to the collusion between the parties. He said that he returned the NAB amendment Bill unsigned by making the comment that in white collar crime, the onus of proving accumulation of wealth rested with the accused in Islam and in many laws of other countries like the UK and Switzerland.
He said that he was trying to bring the stakeholders closer together in his personal capacity through democratic means of consultations, negotiation and deliberations at the appropriate level. He said Pakistan was facing some real issues like unprecedented floods, and a fragile economic situation which needed unity of purpose among the stakeholders.
He said the government, the institutions, both civil and military, and other stakeholders were doing good work to provide relief and rescue to the global warming-induced super floods by mobilizing all available resources. He stressed the need for setting up a foolproof system for fair and equitable distribution of aid and setting in place a mechanism to stop pilferage. He hoped that the government’s efforts to convince the lenders for loan swaps and other measures would succeed to provide resources to the government for flood relief efforts and rehabilitation of flood affectees and rebuilding of the lost infrastructure. The President also reiterated his appeal to NGOs, Civil Society and the international community to generously donate for the relief of flood affectees.
He said that we should revive civil defence training programs and activate and train the Girls & Boy Scouts and other such organizations and educate the nation on preventive means against national disasters to come to the aid of the administration in case of man-made and natural calamities for providing immediate first-aid and CPR to affectees of the disasters.
