Senator Bahramand Khan Tangi withdrew on Monday a resolution seeking ban seeking a ban on all social media platforms after a protest from lawmakers in the House on his move.
“In this House, everyone has the right to bring legislation/resolution/motion, but after the consensus and discussion if some colleagues do not agree with me and you feel that the majority of my members or general masses do not agree with my resolution then that the member has the right o withdraw it so I withdraw it,” he said on the floor of the House.
Mirza Muhammad Afridi was presiding over the Senate session.
The resolution to have Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube banned in Pakistan to “save the young generation from their negative and devastating effects” was on the agenda of the House.
He alleged that the social media platforms were creating hatred amongst the people on the grounds of language and religion.
The development came amid the partial outage of X, formerly Twitter, services in the country since Feb 17 when a senior official made public admission of vote rigging on Feb 8.
Tangi was expelled by the PPP last month for remaining silent in a Senate session the month before when Independent Senator Dilawar Khan had moved a separate resolution seeking postponement of general elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Before taking the agenda, lawmakers started protesting when Tangi started to talk about his resolution.
“In this house, everyone is representing their parties and very intellectual and politically minded people. Everyone has the right to bring a resolution/motion across the party as a Pakistani which can be debated. Maybe it is bad, however, even if it is discussed it is better for our country’s future,” he said and added that he discussed the resolution with his colleagues.
He clarified that he did not table the resolution either on anyone’s order or on any directive. But lawmakers continued to protest and did not let him speak.
Later, the speaker took the agenda and gave him a chance when his turn came.
The session chaired by the deputy chairman today also passed six bills, according to Associated Press of Pakistan.
These included the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Pakistan Emergency Treatment Coverage Programme Bill 2023, the Pakistan Opportunistic Screening and Treatment of Hypertension Bill 2023, the Islamabad Capital Territory Protection of Breast-Feeding and Child Nutrition Bill, 2023, the International Institute of Technology, Culture and Health Sciences Bill 2024 and the National Database and Registration Authority (Amendment) Bill 2023.
Besides, several other bills were also introduced in the House which were referred to the concerning standing committees.
