PAKISTAN: Does the country enjoy freedom of expression to any extent?

Baseer Naveed

Freedom of expression is today at its lowest in the history of the country. The people of the country have, in fact, never enjoyed freedom of expression. However, during the last decade or so the governments have claimed that they have given freedom of expression to the media. This is not borne out by the number of journalists that have been killed, tortured or struggled as victims of unemployment due to working to the dictates of their conscience and not to the self-censorship the government and media houses would like to see. A point of confusion is how the people compare the freedom of expression with the freedom of the media houses. The two are completely difference and far distant from each other.

In fact, much of the self-censorship comes from the media houses themselves as they do not wish to draw the ire of the government, judiciary, the armed forces and more so, that of the Muslim fundamentalists. Sadly the voices that really need to be heard, those of the peasant farmers and labourers in the industrial areas are ignored and therefore silenced by the media whose sole purpose is to gain advertising revenue. It is no longer a secret that the media houses are 'driven' by the armed forces through their Inter Services Public Relations office. The judiciary, which has always been a poodle of the armed forces, neither of which has never really served the nation in its history, have both been given the status of a sacred cow.

One point of proof that freedom of expression is absent in the country is the fact that the media houses seldom allow any real criticism of the military, Muslim militants or religious extremists.

One example is as to how the state institutions and media houses have curbed free speech. The restriction on the freedom of expression may be dated back to the very creation of the country. Pakistan was created on the 14th August 1947 and the father of the nation gave his inaugural speech three days earlier on the 11th August. It is interesting to note that the speech of the Governor General-to-be, Mr. Jinnah, was itself censored. The interesting point was that only those portions were censored which were purely secular in their nature where Mr. Jinnah said that you are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. He further said now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.

Two years after the creation of Pakistan the so-called legislators passed a resolution entitled the Objective Resolution of Pakistan. In this resolution it was declared that sovereignty lay with Allah. This later became part of the constitution and denied the people the right to democracy, thereby creating the guidelines on the restrictions for the freedom of expression and the freedom to practice the religion of your choice. The country was declared a theocratic society where only Islam can prevail and no one else had any rights, the citizens were divided into Muslims and non Muslims. A clear demarcation was made between the majority and the minority, so all rights were recognized for Muslims and those who were not Muslim had no rights. The concept of equality for various sections of the society was supposed to be determined on this basis.

Again through the 1973 constitution, which was the first time anything was passed unanimously, the state took the responsibility to decide who is Muslim and who is not by making the fourth amendment in the constitution where the Ahmadis were declared as non-Muslim. Through this amendment state has the power to declare who is Muslim, strengthened the pressure groups, the Muslim fundamentalists, to take the responsibility of declaring Muslims and non Muslims.

The objective resolution was made part of the pre-amble of the constitution. But during the military regime of General Zia ul Haq the Objective Resolution was made as the part of the constitution. Those rights of minorities which were given in the original Objective Resolution were also deleted. General Zia has made three famous laws, the Blasphemy laws by inserting clause B and C, Qisas and Diyat, through which the evidence from women denied and the Had ordinance. So the rights of women and religious minority groups were denied.

This has resulted in self censorship of the media as the rules and regulations concerning the blasphemy laws are not being adhered to. These are that the arresting and investigating officer must be of the rank of Superintendent of Police. However, people are being arrested by the mob and if they are lucky, handed over alive to any police officer who happens to be present.

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PAKISTAN: Does the country enjoy freedom of expression?