[No] Freedom Of Expression In Pakistan

“Media is draw­ing a neg­a­tive image of Pak­istan, it speaks bun­dles of lies and it shows a degrad­ing pic­ture of Pak­istan to the whole world” and oth­ers were some of the sen­tences which the major­i­ty believed and still believe to be true in Pak­istan. I beg to dif­fer; media may be broad­cast­ing out of con­text news, recur­ring tele­cast of a par­tic­u­lar issue or exag­ger­at­ing a non-issue, but it is show­ing only what actu­al­ly is hap­pen­ing.

The torch­ing of Joseph Colony of Lahore and a Dharamsha­la in Larkana, were not pic­tured scenes of a Hol­ly­wood movie. The tak­ing over of GHQ, Mehran, Kam­ra Air­bas­es were events actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing, not mere­ly fan­ta­sy of a rebel and also they were not a made-up scene of some James Bond series movie.

The hap­pen­ing or non-hap­pen­ing of an event or of a cer­tain act com­pels the peo­ple to devel­op an opin­ion which they are enti­tled to express through the means of their con­ve­nience. The Con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan and the 1948 Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights guar­an­tee in unequiv­o­cal terms the exer­cise of free­dom of expres­sion. The con­sti­tu­tion – the supreme amongst all laws – los­es its force when its pro­vi­sions get mer­ci­less­ly crushed; be it by a dic­ta­tor, a pow­er­ful civil­ian or unknown ter­ror­ists.

The fun­da­men­tal rights as giv­en in the con­sti­tu­tion con­sist of a long list of rights that are sup­posed to be enjoyed by the sub­jects of the con­sti­tu­tion. How­ev­er, the same are least pro­tect­ed and sel­dom enjoyed by the cit­i­zens. The Courts have been empha­siz­ing the rule of law and suprema­cy of the con­sti­tu­tion, which mere­ly seem to be words of mouth hav­ing no prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion. The fun­da­men­tal right of free­dom of expres­sion has become more or less redun­dant in the pre­vail­ing state of affairs. Free­dom of expres­sion with­out any hin­drance is a sign of an intel­lec­tu­al­ly devel­oped soci­ety. But the fear of ter­ror­ists and also favor to them has led Pak­istan to be an intel­lec­tu­al­ly cor­rupt, moral­ly sense­less and reli­gious­ly big­ot­ed soci­ety.

Pre­vi­ous­ly the mass­es had few­er forums to express their opin­ions but after the media rev­o­lu­tion and espe­cial­ly after the rise of social media, every com­mon per­son who has access to inter­net uses face­book, twit­ter and many oth­er forums where one can speak one’s lungs out. The social media inter­ac­tive sites pro­vide cus­tomiza­tion of posts at the con­ve­nience of its users. Still, a user liv­ing in Karachi sim­ply can­not open­ly and fear­less­ly express his polit­i­cal opin­ion against a cer­tain polit­i­cal par­ty. Sim­i­lar­ly, one can­not express the dis­agree­ment with any polit­i­cal or reli­gious fig­ure. If done so then he him­self will sole­ly be respon­si­ble for the con­se­quences. One can­not open­ly speak and write against the mighty and ruth­less ter­ror­ists, polit­i­cal par­ties (includ­ing self-claimed lib­er­al par­ties), reli­gious heads etc.

Even the big media hous­es have start­ed play­ing on back foot and act­ing cau­tious­ly. The fear of ter­ror­ists has engrossed the hearts and minds of not only inves­tiga­tive writ­ers, edi­tors and blog­gers but also of the free­lance jour­nal­ists who have a say in their cir­cle and whose opin­ion mat­ters to their read­ers.

There are cer­tain issues which require debate, delib­er­a­tions, exchange of ideas and dis­cus­sions for bet­ter for­mu­la­tion. For instance, in Pak­istan one can­not speak about reli­gious issues ratio­nal­ly. Ratio­nal­i­ty is equat­ed with chal­leng­ing the divin­i­ty, although speak­ing argu­men­ta­tive­ly opens up the minds and clears con­fu­sion. But unfor­tu­nate­ly it is often regard­ed as blas­phe­my, stu­pid­i­ty or insan­i­ty which can even end up with death either award­ed by the court or indi­vid­u­als act­ing as mob court.

Rais­ing voice for the vul­ner­a­ble and redress­ing the plight of fel­low Pak­ista­nis is treat­ed as unfor­give­able sin with­in the soci­ety if the fel­low Pak­istani is not a Mus­lim. How­ev­er, nei­ther Islam nor nation­al laws restrain a Mus­lim from help­ing non-Mus­lims or speak­ing for them if they are being sup­pressed. But sad­ly the indi­vid­u­als who are self-acclaimed torch bear­ers of Islam want their fol­low­ers to do what is direct­ed by them, irre­spec­tive of what Islam lays down about it.

The so-called Islam­ic (read un-Islam­ic enact­ments) laws are not open to debate in Pak­istan. Con­demn­ing the laws made in the name of Islam, which at the same time negate the basics of Islam, is implic­it­ly for­bid­den. One who talks for amend­ment or repeal of those laws has to remem­ber the fate that slain Gov­er­nor of Pun­jab Salman Taseer met.

Non-Mus­lims are becom­ing sec­ond class cit­i­zens of Pak­istan. They are denied the right to pro­fess, prac­tice and prop­a­gate their reli­gion which is guar­an­teed by the con­sti­tu­tion and pro­tect­ed by the Objec­tives Res­o­lu­tion of 1949. Qur’an also under­lines the prin­ci­ple of reli­gious inde­pen­dence, as the verse states, “for you is your reli­gion, and for me is my reli­gion” [109:6].

But one can­not show sym­pa­thy when the verse is prac­ti­cal­ly vio­lat­ed in the name of Islam with­out set­ting the com­mu­ni­ties blazed. The ‘illog­i­cal log­ic’ takes the edge that a per­son of the com­mu­ni­ty dis­re­spect­ed Islam. Since Islam is a reli­gion of peace and the last Prophet Muham­mad (P.B.U.H) is a uni­ver­sal fig­ure, when it comes to tol­er­ance, every­one should teach and prac­tice tol­er­ance, peace, non-vio­lence and patience.

The soci­ety at large has to act as resist­ing force against the big­ots who have and still want to silence the indi­vid­u­als who are vocal against them. The dis­agree­ment with the opin­ion of oth­ers needs to be tak­en as con­struc­tive not as degrad­ing and should not be ridiculed. Fear may silence some indi­vid­u­als but it should not and can­not kill the col­lec­tive con­science of the soci­ety. Only the prac­ti­cal enforce­ment of the fun­da­men­tal rights includ­ing right to speak and express, can bring the storm­ing change in the minds of the mass­es which is inevitably impor­tant for the groom­ing of the soci­ety.