AFTER some uncertainty engendered by contrary messages in the first few months of its tenure, the PTI government’s intentions towards the media are becoming more apparent. And it is a disheartening scenario for anyone who believes in the freedom of the press and the people’s right to information. According to reports, the Voice of America’s Urdu and Pashto websites have been blocked in Pakistan. While the Pashto website had been blocked some months back, the Urdu one too has become inaccessible since last week. The ban, according to a VoA official, came on the heels of coverage by the international news organisation of a rally by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement in KP. The VoA’s English website quotes Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry as saying that the action was taken on account of “false and prejudiced reporting” by the news source, which he alleged was promoting a single narrative while ignoring the many positive developments in the country.

Nothing could be further from the PTI government’s announcement early in its tenure that it had lifted censorship from state-run media outlets; that implied promise of a state willing to brook a free media has clearly proved to be a false dawn. In fact, the information minister’s statement is one that the most repressive regimes in the world use as justification to silence public debate, strangle independent thought, and impose a one-dimensional worldview upon their people. It is deeply unfortunate that a government that claims to have come into power through elections they have won fair and square, with the will of the people exercising their right of franchise, could resort to such blatant censorship. The media is rightly seen as a pillar of democracy; what else but a free press can act as a watchdog of the public interest? Instead, the media is being pushed to the wall, and journalists who dare ask inconvenient questions, who refuse to be silent in the face of injustice, are demonised as being anti-state. A government that truly wants to do its duty by the people should welcome scrutiny of its processes and decisions, for in their absence, corruption and abuse of power would inevitably thrive. Propaganda — or what is perceived to be propaganda — is undesirable from wherever it emanates, but it must be countered through well-reasoned argument rather than paranoia worthy of a totalitarian state. That does more harm to the country’s image than anything else.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2018