KARACHI, July 18: The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), in an emergency meeting, convened by its president, Hameed Haroon, here on Thursday, decided to move “aggressively and affirmatively,” to open up the agenda on the proposed black press laws to public debate.
The members of the executive committee of the society, according to an APNS press release, “have endorsed this approach unanimously to foster the spirit of fair and open public discussion, both nationally and internationally, with respect to the changes in press laws contemplated by President Pervez Musharraf’s administration. The committee also expressed major reservations with respect to the trend and drift of the government’s press policy, and noted with disdain the deterioration of press-government relations with the induction of the present federal minister for information and media development, Nisar Memon.
“A heated debate took place during the APNS session on black press laws. The members were unanimously of the opinion that a backdoor attempt was being made to transform a vital tenet of the Constitution of Pakistan, Article 19, that guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of press and sets up the watchdog role of the press in any future democratic set-up. Either, President Musharraf’s government has decided to dispense with the role of the press as a future watchdog of citizens’ rights, or it has simply decided to dispense with a functioning democracy in the future. Neither function is possible without the other,” an APNS spokesman announced after the meeting.
“The storm clouds portending the arrival of new black press laws have been on the horizon since at least the month of March,” the APNS spokesman added.
He stressed that the first signs of trouble appeared when the federal ministry of information and media development suddenly shifted tack on an earlier decision to issue ordinances, which had been mutually discussed and agreed to with the representatives of the APNS, and the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE). Several months after such a consensus, the federal cabinet had still not passed the new texts of the proposed laws. The arrival of several new amendments, including “new formulations highly inimical to the exercise of fundamental rights,” heralded a new period when APNS was no longer invited by the ministry to discuss the new press laws.
“Suddenly a draft of the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002, which the APNS and CPNE had struggled a long time for, arrived upon our table. What did not arrive was the new ordinance proposed by the law minister, Khalid Ranjha’s Defamation Ordinance 2002, apparently simultaneously drafted in the by-now-infamous corridors of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB). The NRB and its chief, retired Lt-Gen Tanveer Naqvi, have exhibited responses ranging from complete silence to outright denial with respect to their role in the drafting of this black law. They have continuously stated in private that the drafting of such a law is prerequisite for fulfilling the loan conditionalities of the Asian Development Bank and other international lending institutions. We wish to publicly pose the question to the formidable trinity of Messrs. Memon, Ranjha and Naqvi:
“Since when did the ADB demand a black press law that requires summary justice by a district judge in four months? Did the international lending institutions insist on the proposed clauses on defences with respect to the defamation law, that present the bizarre conclusion that any factual assertion which is true, fair and made in the public interest, would be treated as defamation? Are Pakistan’s international sponsors and well-wishers behind the clause that stipulates a compulsory apology and an exorbitant fine under a civil defamation suit, leaving the way open for an additional criminal defamation suit? Or, did the ADB demand the effective torpedoing of the autonomously regulated Press Council, which now appears as irrelevant when viewed in conjunction with the proposed Defamation Ordinance 2002. Apparently, the three key personalities in President Musharraf’s government have a lot of answering to do, in the by-now-overcrowded dock of public opinion,” the spokesman added.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: The APNS spokesman also expressed major reservations on the absence of any selectivity criteria for the declassification of government documents under the proposed Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002. “Tied together with an Official Secrets Act and the draconian new defamation laws, along with a few nasty provisions proposed in the Press Registration Ordinance 2002 and the virtual castration of the Press Council Act of 2002, freedom of expression and press will be a travesty under the new order in the post-October set-up — not to mention closed death cell for information in the run up to the national elections. Is this the new golden utopia that we were promised three years ago?” the spokesman asked the members present at the meeting.
“The APNS President, the office-bearers and all the members of the executive committee have unequivocally declared that the terms of the debate with respect to future of the press will be open to participation by all segments of Pakistani society — professional bodies, persons and governmental organisations abroad, committed to the freedom of press and exploration of the legislative values that underlie it. The APNS will demonstrate the requisite courtesy by waiting a week before sending out, for public circulation, both at home and abroad, the drafts of the new proposed press laws to all and sundry.
“We will appeal to international human and civil rights organisations to write to the President of Pakistan, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the federal ministers of information and law, as well as the chief of the National Reconstruction Bureau. We would also urge all political parties nationwide, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, all NGOs and all bastions of organised public opinion, not to forget concerned citizens to help us in our peaceful struggle for the realization of our legitimate rights. We finally urge the President and Chief Executive of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, to review the fearsome activities of certain figures and near-Jacobean groups within his administration, who are leading the government and the press on a virtual collision course, instead of focussing support on his battles to purge the country of the corrupt, to drastically curtail the incidence of extremism and violence in sectarian militancy and other forms of political vigilantism and finally, to lessen tension on our borders, so that Pakistan may assume its rightful place amongst the comity of nations,” the APNS spokesman concluded.