November 13, 2007	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 02, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Nov 12: Speakers at a seminar here today called for lifting martial law that has been imposed camouflaged as emergency, restoration of the 1973 constitution and reinstatement of the pre-emergency judiciary.

The seminar on “National unity: exploring options” was organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

The speakers observed that the imposition of ‘emergency’, curbs on media freedom, suspension of fundamental rights of citizens and the oath under Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) given to judges of the superior courts were actions that were detrimental to national unity.

Zafarullah Khan of Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Mazhar Abbas, Secretary General Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), former ambassador Dr B. A Malik and Dr Inayatullah of the Council of Social Sciences (COSS) spoke on the occasion.

Harris Khalique, Chief Executive, Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO), presided over the proceedings.

Terming government’s recent actions against the media “worst as well as unprecedented” Mazhar Abbas emphasised the need for united struggle against the draconian steps taken against civil liberties by the regime.

He lamented that this time the government had itself violated its own laws by blocking all private TV channels and banning all information sources through verbal orders without following the PEMRA rules and procedures.

Mr Abbas said the government seemed to be planning the conversion of private media into state-controlled organ by asking owners of the TV channels to sign an undertaking with the government before the channels were allowed to function again.

The PFUJ leader feared that the government wanted to engineer the coming general elections as the signing of the undertaking and enforcement of amended PEMRA ordinance will turn media’s permanent licence into temporary ones, restricting the conditions for anchors, applying selective controls on showing different events and huge penalties in case of violation to stop media from exercising its rights during the coming general elections.

But since the media had a long history of fighting repression of this kind he hoped that ultimately ‘we will win’ by regaining the right to know for the citizens.

Zafarullah Khan urged the need for harmony among the different organs of the state lamenting that a long history of continued negation of separation of powers among state organs had lead to the present worst crisis.

He lamented that smaller provinces had been deprived of their rights adding that the mistreatment of the Chief Justice, registration of high treason cases against Baloch nationalists, disappearances from Balochistan and other tribal areas have been the challenging factors for national unity.

He deplored that the state was run by GRIP — governor, revenues, ideology and president — with absolute powers. Citing the cases of Hitler and the Soviet Union, he cautioned that draconian laws and terror-spreading measures and actions could not ensure national unity and prosperity.

Ambassador (retd) B.A. Malik urged the people of Pakistan to rise against the draconian laws and unconstitutional measures of the present regime to snatch their fundamental rights.

“The situation has reached to a now or never point and it is high time to transform our thoughts in actions adding that frequent martial laws, amendments in army act, locking up the judges, banning of media channels, disinformation of state media, inhuman treatment of people of Pakistan, prolonging of elections, partiality of the state institutions and false claims of transition to complete civilian rule are the biggest challenges to national unity.”

Talking of the three principles of Quaid-i-Azam “unity, discipline and faith”, Mr Malik lamented that there was a crisis of definition of these principles among the ruling elite and democratic forces in the country.

He said for the ruling elite unity meant unity in cantonments, discipline meant “left right”, and faith meant faith in guns, while for democratic forces unity belonged to diversity, faith in people and discipline meant rule of law and respect for the constitution.

Dr Inayatullah, while giving several examples from history of Pakistan, identified the repeated military interventions in politics as the major factor hindering the attainment of national unity.

He said that military interventions had stopped the liberal and democratic culture from evolving, distorting political institutions and persecuting and dividing political parties. He said that in the early martial laws the judiciary was interfered but later through different PCOs the independent judges were replaced with those ready to serve the military dictators.

He said that many political leaders were disqualified and thousands of political activists were put behind the bar. He said that the dictators introduced exclusive nationalism and false national unity for fostering their vested interests.

He demanded “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” on the pattern of South Africa for forging the national unity.

He said as a major contributor to national disunity, the military should also publicly confess its mistakes and declare that it would not repeat these.