| June 24, 2007 | Sunday | Jamadi-us-Sani 08, 1428 |
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Gagging the media
ON the third anniversary of the death of Zamir Niazi, as recounted on this page on June 19 by Dr Tariq Rahman, his friends and family met to remember him. There is not much that one can add to what has already been written about Zamir – the sole detailed and accurate chronicler of the sorry history of the press in Pakistan and the assaults by every government, during his lifetime, on its freedom.
His first book, 'Press in Chains', was published in 1986, during the repressive Ziaul Haq era during which journalists who transgressed the imposed laws were flogged. In this book, Zamir tells the full story of the first major governmental attack on the press. This was the taking over by the government of President General Ayub Khan of Progressive Papers Limited, the group owned by Mian Iftikharuddin, amongst the publications of which was the highly respected and outspoken Pakistan Times.
On April 18 1959, early in the morning, Ayub’s minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, arrived at the house of Mazhar Ali Khan, the Pakistan Times editor, to advise him that two days previously an amendment had been made in the Security Act and under this amendment all PPL papers had been taken over by the government. The PPL offices had been surrounded just after midnight and appropriated, Mian Iftikharuddin’s house had been searched and all relevant material removed. The Pakistan Times lived on thereafter for unmemorable years, fully muzzled by the government, until it died, discredited and unmourned.
After the PPL takeover came the promulgation of the Press and Publications Ordinance of 1960 on April 26, 1960. This PPO was the darkest of the dark press laws we have so far had the misfortune to suffer. It was the brain-child of unprincipled ambitious minds, of devious and powerful civil servants, Qudrutullah Shahab and Altaf Gauhar. And two government ministers who actively encouraged the general were liberal Manzoor Qadir and democrat Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. All of them have denied their involvement.
The PPO lived and thrived for 28 years until in 1988, Presdent Ghulam Ishaq Khan appointed as his information minister friend Ilahi Baksh Soomro who was helped by a ruling of the Shariat Court and managed to nullify many of the nasty effects of this shameful ordinance.
There is little that is new under the Pakistani sun. Most governments have attempted to demolish the judiciary and some have succeeded. What they have inevitably done next is to turn their malicious eye on the press.
Things by and large were chugging along fairly smoothly in the Republic, with a few of the normal political, social, ethnic and sectarian upheavals, until suddenly this March President General Pervez Musharraf, either in a fit of madness or on the advice of sycophantic scoundrels, undertook his assault on the judiciary, via the person of the Chief Justice of Pakistan. In this day and age, this was a foolish thing to do and, of course, it has had, and will have, repercussions not easy to handle by the largely inept and corrupt political crew hired by the general.
Having been praised time and again, and rightly so, for being the head of state and government to allow the maximum freedom ever allowed to the press, and having allowed and encouraged the electronic media to multiply and flourish, he should have known that the affair of the Chief Justice would receive full coverage – particularly as someone on his staff had been so stupid as to invite into the camp office the PTV cameras on the morning of March 9 when Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry came calling on him at his, the CJ’s, request.
The subsequent actions were fully reported, the lawyers’ protests aired all day, the Chief Justice’s travels to Lahore aired day and night by all the private news channels, and then came May 12 in Karachi, again the affair of the Chief Justice. Blood was amply shed, mayhem and disorder reigned, the whole nation was witness to what had happened in Karachi that day and later, most shamefully, in Islamabad that night. Again, either in a fit of madness, or on ‘advice’ from his dangerous advisers, the president general decided (as all his predecessors have done) to act against the press freedom he had so wisely accorded.
This day will be remembered in Pakistan as the most recent Day of Infamy. Fifty lives were lost and some two hundred injured. Those responsible were three – the president general who never tires of preaching enlightenment and moderation and who rightly wages war against terror, his coalition partner, the Pir of London Town, and the man directly responsible for the safety of our lives and properties, the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The latter was besieged at the Karachi airport, surrounded by his impresarios among who shines his Cambridge Chaudhry chauffeur.
As soon as the CJP heard the news of the killing of the first citizen could he not have announced : “I do not wish people to die for me. I am cancelling my visit. Fly me back to Islamabad.”? What were our ‘leaders’ and protectors trying to establish – that in Pakistan brawn rules over brain?
The first shot fired from the government canon came on June 2, when the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) addressed a letter to the managements of the private television channels informing them that the decision had been taken to ban any TV coverage of any events related to the affair of the Chief Justice. They were directed not to air any programme that “is likely to encourage violence or contains anything against [the] maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national and anti-state attitude.”
Also not to be aired is “anything which amounts to contempt of court” or “contains aspersions [on] the judiciary and integrity of the armed forces of Pakistan . . . .”. Non-implementation of the ‘directives’ would invoke legal action under the Pemra ordinance of 2002.
Then, on June 4 came a veritable volley – the Pemra (Amendment) Ordinance, issued two days prior to a National Assembly session (a coincidence?), which authorises Pemra to take action against television channels violating the rules. Inter alia, it is authorised to confiscate the equipment of any broadcasting channel and to seal its premises. It may also suspend the licenses of TV channels and violators of the rules are to be fined Rs.10 million.
Pemra is authorised to make any new rules it may deem fit. As reported in this newspaper, “The ordinance revokes many of the major provisions of a law passed by parliament three months ago after a two-year debate and consultations with the stakeholders.”
The excuse given by the general for this move against a media which he had freed was that in airing the events of May 12 in Karachi the media had transgressed accepted norms of decency by showing dead bodies, some headless or limbless, dying people, wounded people, and a large amount of blood and gore. He rightly stated that the electronic media in democratic lands of this world avoid bloodshed and scenes of death.
This may be so, but the main reason for clamping down on the media is to shut out the day-and- night-long scenes of the various ‘caravans’ paraded around the country in support of the Chief Justice and his lawyer supporters. Shots of thousands of members of the beloved awam flocking to greet and meet the Chief Justice were not appreciated, as were not the shots of him being showered with rose petals by his black-coated ‘mock hunger-striking’ friends.
The ordinance, signed by General Musharraf, states that all action that can be taken by Pemra is required “for the reason of necessity in the public interest.” Now, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has defined the public interest “as the general welfare of the public that warrants recognition and protection – something in which the public as a whole has a stake.” It would seem ironic that the apparent need to control acts of violence committed by the government itself should be subject to any sort of censure in this day and age.
The ordinance has to be approved by the National Assembly within four months, failing which it stands as lapsed.
It is to be hoped that President General Musharraf will heed history and not allow himself to be wrongly led by his ministers, advisers and bureaucracy and accept that the press should retain the same freedoms that it had prior to June 2 2007, and by his own hand repeal in its entirety the amendments made by the promulgation of this new ordinance.
He should realise that in this 21st century, with the electronic media being what it is, power vests not only in the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, but also in the media, though anyone reading the document that passes for our Constitution will find no reference to the institution of the press and the electronic media. As with the other three institutions, the media should be independent and strong as without it an effective check on those three cannot be ensured.
arfc@cyber.net.pk
