KARACHI: Dawn CEO Hameed Haroon, through his lawyer, on Monday sent a legal notice to filmmaker Jamshed Mahmood under Section 8 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, asking for an unconditional public apology and retraction of rape allegations.

Talking to dawn.com, the director, popularly known as Jami, said that he had received the notice and was in the process of reading through it. He added, however, that an apology was not “even a distant possibility”.

“There is a lot that needs to be done for victims of sexual harassment and for future victims,” he said, adding that he had addressed many of the points raised in Haroon’s notice in his previous posts on social media.

Last year in October, Jami came forward with the accusation that he was raped by a “media tycoon” 13 years ago and on Dec 28, named Haroon as his alleged rapist.

Demands an unconditional public apology and retraction of rape allegations within 14 days of receipt of notice

In response, Haroon had issued a statement categorically rejecting the rape accusations and saying he would initiate legal action.

The four-page legal notice sent on Monday, addressed to Jami’s office in Karachi, refers to Jami’s tweets from Oct 20, noting “the alleged rapist was never specifically named, even though hints and innuendos were dropped from time to time that could conceivably be taken as suggesting that the alleged rapist was our client [Haroon]”.

Referring to the [series of attacks][4] on the Dawn Media Group in December, when a mob besieged Dawn Media’s offices in Islamabad and Karachi, the notice highlights that “some members of this mob had pictures/posters of our client which made specific reference to the false rape allegations being made by you”.

“That almost two months after circulating your first tweet on being allegedly raped, and strangely and abruptly travelling outside Pakistan, on December 28, 2019 on the social media platform Twitter, you falsely and maliciously labelled our client as an alleged rapist.

“Since then, you have been continuing to circulate this false allegation all over Pakistan, including Karachi and abroad. Our client categorically denies that he has ever perpetrated sexual assault on anyone and categorically denies that he has raped you,” says the notice.

“This false and malicious allegation has been levelled at the instigation of powerful interests in the state and society who, for their own motives and the promotion of their own repressive narrative, wish to destroy our client’s credibility, especially his credibility as a leading advocate of the freedom of the press.”

The notice also says that Jami besides being “part of a larger agenda” to target Haroon, was motivated by the “greed to seek fame”.

The notice terms the allegation “a false statement [...] to injure the reputation” of Haroon and says it aims to subject Haroon to “ridicule, unjust criticism, dislike, contempt and hatred and to target the freedom of the press”.

The notice says that unless Jami circulates an unconditional public apology and issues a public statement retracting his allegation of rape from all social media posts and other media outlets within 14 days of the receipt of this notice, Haroon reserves the right to initiate civil and criminal legal proceedings against the director under Section 499 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, and the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, and other applicable laws.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020