Media: The more things change...

The more things change, the more they remain the same, goes the old adage. In terms of the media in Pakistan, much has changed. The most notable change in the media landscape is the rise of the independent electronic media that ironically was born and flourished under the very man who has clamped down upon it.

The significance of the mass electronic media in a local language is clearly great in a country with a literacy rate of less than a third of the population. In this situation, the possibility that real news and independent views could reach the public through independent electronic media was so threatening that the Nawaz Sharif government tried its best to prevent the phenomenon from taking root. Musharraf was then only the Army Chief.

The tension between the government and the media began building up in the summer of 1998, after Nawaz Sharif announced his controversial Constitutional Amendment 15 (the 'Shariat Bill'). Behind the scenes, the real issue appears to have been the Jang Group’s planned launch of Geo, a Dubai-based satellite television channel that would undoubtedly challenge the monopoly of Pakistan Television. In early 1999, the Jang Group went public with the government’s demands to remove 16 journalists, and support it on various policy matters like the 'Shariat Bill' and its handling of the law and order situation.

The journalists’ bodies put their personal and professional differences aside and stood solidly behind the Jang Group. So did representatives of NGOs, bar associations, and trade unions. Eventually, the government withdrew all the cases against the Jang ownership and dropped its demands to get rid of the offending journalists. The price that the Jang group had to pay was to shelve its plans for a private television channel.

In another incident, in May that year, the secret agencies picked up Najam Sethi, Editor of The Friday Times for a ‘seditious’ speech in New Delhi, and held him for four months without charge. He was released due to the national and international outcry.

In both cases, journalists held public protests and demonstrations all over Pakistan, supported by NGOs and lawyers. “Only two institutions have been left to withstand the government in Pakistan,� prominent advocate Khalid Ranjha said at one of these protest meetings, “the bar associations and the press.� Today, both institutions are again under severe pressure.

The police did not stop these protests or baton charge or arrest the journalists or lawyers. At the end of the day, his ‘amirul momineen’ aspirations notwithstanding, Sharif was a civilian ruler whom the people of Pakistan would have rejected at the polls had the process of democratic politics been allowed to continue. Musharraf’s military coup of 1999 – ‘bloodless’, as the Western media is fond of putting it – prevented this public exercise of accountability from taking place.

Whoever came into power next would have sooner or later been compelled to allow the private independent channels to come on air. As it happened, that person was Pervez Musharraf, coming in not through the ballot but through his power as army chief. He could afford to be magnanimous with the media then because there was hardly any opposition to his snatching of power. The only dissenting voice was that uncomfortable thorn in the side of every government, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Musharraf claims that he gave the media more freedom than ever before, but journalists have always struggled for this freedom, which has again been yanked away from us. We may not have to deal with ‘press advices’ and direct censorship, but behind the scenes, unspoken curbs and no-go areas have increased. Since Musharraf came into power, almost two dozen journalists have been killed in different incidents. Uniformed men have slapped, hit and beaten journalists discharging their professional duties, snatching their cameras and confiscating their films. Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, Islamabad, Sukkur and other cities have all witnessed such scenes. Where only one Najam Sethi was picked up under the Sharif regime, over the past eight years, dozens have been picked up and tortured by Pakistan’s secret agencies.

Since Nov 3, comparisons to the previous martial law of Gen Ziaul Haq have been inevitable. Musharraf proudly claimed in his speech that night that when he came into (took over) power, the only television channel was PTV -- missing completely the irony that at the time of the broadcast, once again, we had only PTV.

That afternoon, all independent television channels were blocked from the cable network. Many remained off the air for the next couple of weeks. In subsequent days and weeks, they started coming back on air, one by one. The first to return were the ‘business channels’ (one of them owned by a caretaker minister, no surprises there). Some signed the government’s ‘code of conduct’. Others, like the English-language Dawn TV refused to sign anything but managed to get back on air citing sober and responsible news coverage that could be periodically reviewed if the government found it offensive. Some like Aaj and later ARY came back on air after agreeing to drop popular talk show hosts like Talat Hussain and Nusrat Javeed and Kashif Abbasi.

But the network with the largest outreach remains off the air – including its sports, entertainment and youth channels. Geo TV has gone to court to try and revive at least these non-current affairs channels. Amazingly, the Deputy Attorney General on Nov 27 claimed at the hearing before the Sindh High Court that the government had not stopped the channels.

In addition, police were authorized to raid media organizations, printing press and bureau offices. Scores of journalists have been beaten and detained. PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) officials on Nov 3 invaded the independent FM radio station Mast 103.6’s Karachi office with a heavy police contingent, forced it to close transmission and confiscated its broadcast equipment. The popular newspaper cartoonist Feica, who wears another hat as Rafique Ahmed the station manager of FM 103’s Karachi office, along with his other colleagues has been protesting in front of the Karachi Press Club. They’ve also done live street broadcasts, like the banned television talk show hosts are doing.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (www.pfuj.info) has termed the present situation “the worst kind of repression against the media since 1978� and called for an ongoing series of protests, meetings and demonstrations until the media restrictions are lifted and all the channels restored. Today such protests carry more risk than before. Under the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif, even when journalists flouted Section 144, they were not baton charged and rounded up like they have been in recent days.

Moral of the story: A nasty civilian elected government is better than a benign military government. In the end, the latter remains accountable only to its own high command. The people should be allowed to take care of the former.