Thursday was a good day for Pakistani media. Against all odds, the Supreme Court issued a landmark judgement protecting the right to freedom of expression and information even for material that challenges the commonly accepted standards of decency. The ruling came after PEMRA filed a petition against ARY TV over the broadcast of a drama that has attracted criticism from audiences over inappropriate messaging. By rejecting PEMRA’s appeal, the Supreme Court has set an important precedent for the primacy of free speech, which is also incidentally the cornerstone of any democratic society. We cannot continue to ban and erase controversial art simply because it upsets our fragile cultural sensitivities.
Ten years ago, the Supreme Court asked PEMRA to define obscenity after the electronic authority banned a plethora of television channels broadcasting obscene material without clarifying what this might constitute. PEMRA quickly deferred its responsibilities to the Council of Islamic Ideology and has since developed a chokehold on Pakistani law. Let’s not forget that this is the same organisation that denounced the historic Protection of Women against Violence Bill for its apparent incompatibility with Islamic values. To ask a single organisation to decide what is obscene for a population as large and diverse as Pakistan is absurd in and of itself-audiences should be trusted to form their own opinions on controversial material, not forbidden from viewing it altogether merely because it has the potential to offend a small minority of the population.
We must ask ourselves-what exactly is it that makes artistic contributions so dangerous in the eyes of those that violently censor them? 2020 saw three Pakistani artists getting their work either stolen or blocked in an apparent tightening on public expression and art. An art installation depicting extrajudicial killings targeting Pashtuns was promptly destroyed and stolen from a public space in the port city of Karachi. The unique power of visual mediums lies in their ability to change the tides of public opinion. By exposing people to what they do not know, we have a better shot at empathising with one another, abandoning the world of black-and-white binaries and thinking critically about our place in society. It is precisely this that the state fears. *