KARACHI: Interesting views on the subject of freedom of expression were expressed at a panel discussion captioned ‘Who regulates the citizens’ voice?’ organised by the Herald at the Indus Valley School Gallery on Monday evening.

To put things into perspective, moderator of the event Nazish Brohi said freedom of expression was important for democracy because it worked as a platform in forging the relationship between society and its citizens. Talking about Article 19 of the Constitution, she mentioned the phrase ‘reasonable restrictions’ wondering how it would qualify. She added that freedom of speech did not exist in a vacuum; it was a human rights issue.

Noted publisher Ajmal Kamal said freedom of expression was part of a bigger issue. What rulers actually tended to regulate was the “freedom to know”. “The world seems to be on the brink of a big change,” he said and argued that for the past 150 years people had been trying to have their say in the process of decision-making as to how to improve their lives, their children’s lives, etc, and that’s where they were being regulated. He raised the question about how far could we go on the path of violence, giving the example of Kabul, which was once as devastated a city as these days some of the cities in Iran and Syria were.

Mr Kamal said today there was more freedom to receive information because information sharing had reached a global scale. “You can monitor information but cannot control it,” he said. Alluding to the proposed cyber crime bill, he said there would be cases of victimisation but the PTA could not block all the websites. They wanted to instil ‘fear’ in the people, and their attempt would not succeed, he said because “technology favours change”.

Journalist Ghazi Salahuddin painted a comparatively bleak picture in his address. Contextualising Pakistan’s media struggle, he said the country’s media was born with a “congenital weakness” because it was part of the freedom movement which was why it couldn’t be objective. “Sloganeering is in its genes,” he said. He said the masses had no role to play in the making of Pakistan, and since they had no part to play, how could there be freedom of expression in society.

Referring to a book written by journalist Ahfazur Rehman on the 1970s movement for freedom of the press, Mr Salahuddin said the number of people who were then arrested by the authorities was more than what TV channel Bol was able to gather. They (journalists) had the hope that “we would fight”, but nowadays that hope was no more. He put that down to the de-intellectualisation in society. To validate his point, he gave the example of the University of Karachi, where there wasn’t a single newspaper stall. He questioned the significance of freedom of expression in such a society. “The state of society does not allow the freedom of expression that could become an instrument of change,” he pointed out, lamenting that it was hard to have a healthy debate in the country.

Journalist Farieha Aziz began her speech by touching upon the “reasonable restrictions” issue suggesting a debate had evolved on it. On the cybercrime bill, she said one should distinguish between a personalised debate and a criminal speech. She told the audience that more than 60,000 websites had been blocked and asked how many by terrorist outfits had been blocked. She laid stress on striking a balance, arguing that social media was about individual expression, and the cybercrime bill would affect ‘expression’. “There is no way to block something 100 per cent,” she said. She feared that the law would give authority to certain government institutions to enter anyone’s home. “We need to get involved,” she said, adding that unlike TV channels and ISPs, social media was no one’s licensee.

After the discussion, audience put questions to the panellists. Replying to one of them, Mr Salahuddin said Pakistan suffered from an identity crisis. To resolve that crisis a national debate was required; and in order for that to happen freedom of expression was needed. But he bemoaned that the environment where we could have that discourse did not exist.

Mr Kamal said what’s more important than freedom of speech was to back your speech or expression with proper research and knowledge.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2015

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