ePetition PK

Using the platform

Who can start a petition?

Anyone with a verified account. Verification means confirming your email address.

How long does a petition run?

90 days from the date it is published. After that it closes to new signatures but stays on the site as a record.

What happens when a petition reaches its goal?

Petitions that reach 10,000 verified signatures are compiled with their supporting documents and sent to the department or authority they name. Any response received is posted on the petition page.

Can I sign more than once?

No. One signature per verified account, and duplicate accounts are removed along with their signatures.

Can I withdraw my signature?

Yes, from the petition page or from your dashboard. The count updates immediately.

How am I identified on the site?

By your username, and only your username. It is the single identity shown on petitions you start, petitions you sign and comments you post. Your real name is held on your account so the platform can act on abuse, but it is never published, never shown to other members, and never sent to the authority a petition is addressed to. Choose a username that does not identify you if you would rather not be recognised.

Does the site work in Urdu?

Yes. Use the English / اردو control in the header. Petition text written by members is machine translated; the wording of the site itself is written in both languages.

Community guidelines

Petitions and comments are removed if they:

  • name or target a private individual, or publish anyone’s personal details;
  • make accusations of criminal conduct against a named person;
  • contain hate speech, threats, or incitement to violence;
  • are commercial promotion, spam, or duplicates of an existing petition;
  • impersonate another person or an official body;
  • are unlawful in Pakistan.

Moderators review every new petition before publication, and review comments on report. If something of yours is removed you will be told why and can appeal once.

Accounts and security

How are my details protected?

We do not collect a phone number at all. Passwords are stored as one-way hashes and are never recoverable, by us or by anyone else. Sessions are protected against forgery, and every form on the site is rate limited.

Why was my email address rejected?

Throwaway inboxes are refused, because email confirmation is the only identity check on the platform. Addresses that reach a mailbox already registered are refused too, including Gmail aliases such as [email protected].

How do I close my account?

From Profile and settings. Petitions you started stay published, because other people signed them, but they are shown as authored by a former member.

Getting a result

The questions people ask before deciding whether a petition is worth their time.

Does anyone in government have to respond?

No. There is no law in Pakistan obliging an authority to answer a petition on a private platform. What a petition does is create a public, dated record of a request with named support behind it, which is considerably harder to ignore than a single complaint.

Do petitions actually achieve anything?

The ones that do tend to share three features: they name a specific authority, they ask for something checkable, and the people signing are the people affected. Petitions asking a government broadly to fix a national problem almost never produce a result.

Which authority should I address?

Start with the lowest body that has the power to fix it, not the highest office you can name. Our guide on who to address your petition to explains how responsibility divides between local, provincial and federal bodies.

How many signatures do I need?

It depends entirely on scale. A street-level problem needs most of that street, not thousands of strangers. See how many signatures do you need.

Should I complain to the department first?

Usually yes, and keep the reference number. A petition that can show a complaint was made and ignored is much stronger than one that cannot.

Can I change or delete my petition after publishing it?

Only until somebody endorses it. The first endorsement makes a petition a permanent public record: people signed that wording, so altering it would misrepresent what they backed, and deleting it would erase their signatures. You can still post updates, and moderators can still remove anything that breaks the guidelines.

What happens when my petition closes?

It stays online as a dated public record with its signature count and discussion intact, and simply stops accepting new endorsements.

Safety and the law

Can I name a person I believe is responsible?

No. Petitions accusing named individuals of crimes or corruption are removed. We cannot verify the accusation, and publishing it exposes you personally to a defamation claim. Describe what happened and which office is answerable instead.

Will my real name be published?

Never. Petitions, signatures and comments show your username only. Your real name is stored privately and is not shown to other members or to any authority.

Can I petition about something that is in court?

Be careful. Commenting publicly on live proceedings can create problems for the case and for you. If in doubt, wait or take advice.

Someone is abusing my petition's discussion. What can I do?

As the person who started the petition you can mute an account from your own petition's discussion, and you can report comments to the moderators.