Pakistan stifles press freedom
By Massoud Ansari Posted Mon, Jan 1 2001
Life in Gilgit didn’t come to a grinding halt on Nov. 2, when a handful of journalists wearing black armbands and carrying banners took to the streets in a show of muscle power. They were protesting against the banning of the weekly newspaper K-2, one of four major weeklies in the area. But, before the procession could reach the secretariat building, they were cordoned off by the police. Within no time, police constables dumped the “rowdy elements” into the police vans and whisked them away. They were locked up at the local police station for 12 hours and released only after the administration sought assurance from them that they would not indulge in similar activity in the future.
K-2 is one of the oldest weekly newspapers—there are no dailies—in the region. The editor and publisher, Raja Hussain Khan Maqpoon, 24, is now fighting a legal battle in court for the paper’s restoration while he is in hiding. All of this is taking place in the Skardu district in Kashmir, where the Indian and Pakistani armies have fought since 1947.
Maqpoon says, “The court has given Feb. 18 to hear the case, but I have expressed my inability to appear in the court through my attorney. I’m being told by my sympathizers that the day I would land in Skardu, the administration would have me picked up and may possibly convict me on sedition charges.” The penalty for sedition is death.
More than 50 years have passed since the country’s independence, but the press in Pakistan still walks on the razor’s edge. Along with a plethora of legislation against freedom of expression, the changing governments have each invoked national interest to enforce silence. They argue draconian press laws are needed because society has more urgent priorities than protecting the right to free-and-open dissent.
Dozens of laws have been incorporated into Pakistan’s constitution to restrict freedom of information. Article 8 of the constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but it is subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by the law. These restrictions include maintaining the security of Pakistan, keeping friendly relations with foreign states and keeping public order and decency.
According to the Press and Publication Ordinance, the government can inquire into the affairs of a newspaper and can ask for assurance from newspaper and book publishers that they won’t publish objectionable material. The government also has the power to prohibit the printing of such content.
The Pakistan penal code punishes authors and publishers for a long list of offenses. These include seditious writings, writings that promote feelings of enmity or hatred among different classes of the community and articles that outrage different religious communities. There is also punishment for writings that cause public offense or incite a class or community to commit an offense against another class or community.
Local journalist Naziha Syed Ali says, “After the imposition of respective press laws and other harsh measures, conformism has gone into our blood, and journalists in Pakistan are no more free agents and watch dogs of public interests.” She believes that the dictum “people’s right to know” has been changed into “people should only know what the establishment wants them to know.”
K-2’s right to publish was revoked by the district magistrate in Skardu under the Registration of Press and Public Ordinance 1975 on the grounds that the weekly had been printing “material condemning the creation of Pakistan and advocating curtailment of the territories” of the country. The declaration also said that K-2 was creating “hatred and contempt” for the government “with the intention of causing defiance of authority” in three of its issues.
Apparently, authorities in the Northern Areas reacted to K-2’s coverage of a rally held in the federal capital on Aug. 14 last year by a nationalist group, the Northern Areas Thinkers Forum. The group observed Aug. 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day, as “the day of deprivation” and marched to the United Nations offices in Islamabad, calling for pressure on Pakistan to honor the 1947 U.N. resolution on Kashmir. They demanded that both India and Pakistan withdraw troops from disputed territories and allow the people to form local self-government.
Other newspapers covered the event, but the government took action against K-2, ostensibly because similar action against newspapers from other parts of the country could have caused scandal. The government also took notice of an article carried by K-2, written by a former activist of Baltistan Student’s Federation, Manzoor Hussain Parwana, which called for attention to the continuing “constitutionlessness” of the Northern Areas. He advised the administration to abandon the policy because the Pakistani cause would suffer in the event of a referendum.
Khalid Khokhar, editor of the daily newspaper Sindhu, says, “In democratic societies the world over, it is an inherent right of the press to criticize the government even if the criticism is wrong. Freedom of press includes the freedom to make mistakes, but here in Pakistan, the newsmen consider the freedom of the press a moral right, which also entails moral duties and responsibilities.”
Khokhar believes the draconian laws existing in Pakistan subdue journalists’ right to criticize and therefore journalists develop a tendency of self-censorship.
Despite the fact that a small community of journalists in the Northern Areas has taken up the issue against the government’s decision to shut down K-2 and criminally charge Maqpoon, military rulers are unwilling to present the case for public debate. At a recent news conference, the chief executive of the Northern Areas, Abbass Sarfraz, brushed aside a question concerning the ban on K-2, saying that the issue would be better left alone. He later gave an explanation through a press statement justifying the orders of the government and saying that the government could not compromise the national integrity, solidarity and security of Pakistan.
Maqpoon is no exception, which is why he is facing criminal charges for printing what the administration believes to be objectionable material in his newspaper. He says he has been picked on by law enforcing agencies in the past. In 1998, he, along with Iman Shah, bureau chief of K-2, was sentenced to six months imprisonment by the chief court, acting on its own accord, in a contempt case. More recently, Saadat Ali, another journalist in the area, was arrested on criminal charges.
In the meantime, Maqpoon is fighting a solo battle against local administration. He has filed a petition in court and is seeking the support of mainstream journalists in Pakistan, international human rights groups and journalist organizations to pressure authorities into reversing their decision.
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Pakistani Government Shuts Down The Frontier Post
On Jan. 29, the newspaper The Frontier Post in Peshawar published an e-mail by “BenDZac” containing sacrilegious and derogatory remarks against the Islamic faith, the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran. The letter focused on why Muslims allegedly hated Jews.
Two days later, several hundred youngsters, mostly seminary students, torched the offices of the paper, reducing the building, presses and other equipment to ashes. They chanted “Nara-e-Takbir Allah-0—Akbar” (“God is great”) and authorities stood by with their hands folded.
The students announced a two million rupee (US$330,000) reward to find and kill the letter’s author.
On Feb. 18, The New York Times said that police arrested editor Munawwar Mohsin, who published the letter a few days after leaving detox for heroin addiction. He faces the death penalty.
Five Frontier Post staffers were also arrested, the managing editor, has fled and seven employees of a sister paper, Maidan, were arrested. They all risk a death sentence under Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s ruler, says publication of the letter was unacceptable behavior and action is necessary.
Jamil Soomro, a local columnist disagrees. “Because of one mistake, no matter how serious or heinous, the whole edifice of press freedom cannot be allowed to be rocked at will or demolished,” he says