Daily Times

The thrashing meted out by the police to the lawyers and mediamen outside the Election Commission on Saturday has unleashed a much bigger storm against the government than the one it wanted to contain. It also comes at the wrong time because the Supreme Court is now making ready to hear the appeal filed by Justice (Retd) Wajihuddin and Makhdoom Amin Fahim against the Election Commission’s acceptance of the nomination papers of President General Pervez Musharraf. The Chief Justice of Pakistan has already taken suo motu notice of it and asked the administration to explain how and why it happened.
One doesn’t have to go through the details of what kind of brutality the demonstrators had to endure. Owing to the unthinking policy of the Islamabad administration, the whole drama unfolded in front of the camera, and those trying to cover the incident were also roughed up. No effort was made by the police to appear to be defending public security. Instead of the lawyers, it was the police who appeared to be the assaulting party. Liberal use of teargas brought back images of the Lal Masjid affair where the administration cared little for benefiting from the media coverage to strengthen their case against a clearly offensive party bent upon breaking the law.
Now the journalists have joined the lawyers in condemning the government. In some ways the journalist community is structured in the same way as the lawyers and can mobilise public reaction from the grassroots. The lawyers have their bar associations at the level of the district. Similarly, the journalists too have their press clubs in most districts with a reading public. The differences though are many. The lawyers are conscientious objectors dependent on the publicity that the free media gives them. The journalists are not conscientious objectors to anything that the government does under the Constitution. They are paid professionals who compete for coverage of events without becoming involved politically in them. They don’t have to look for publicity. When they protest they get publicity without trying.
Just as the lawyers began their campaign in favour of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the district bars, the media too has leaned on their district contacts to protest the assault by the police. Earlier clashes with TV channels had no doubt soured press-government relations, but no effort was made to dispel the impression on Saturday that the government viewed the media as it enemy. This policy will not succeed as it has not succeeded in the past during the tenures of autocratic rulers — democratic or dictatorial — who decided to “teach the journalists a lesson”. After the blunder of the heavy hand, an equally self-damaging policy of offering blandishments to “some pro-government” journalists was followed. There is actually no alternative to a policy of free coverage of whatever the government does.
The government remains insensitive to the importance of the free media that has come about as a result of its proliferation policy. But it should realise that it has in fact benefited from constant exposure more than the opposition. The government has been able to put its point of view across while appearing to be tolerant of the opposition view. This could only be done through a medium that is accepted by all as impartial. That is how the government has won the argument on the economy in the face of a virulent opposition attack. Business programmes aired by all TV channels show clear sympathy for the status quo under the present government by expressing fears about the unpredictability of the post-Musharraf period. And, despite the “hostile” attitude of the anchors, the government seems to be coming out fairly even in regard to its election prospects.
A TV channel, most offended with the government because its employees were thrashed mercilessly on Saturday, carried out a survey about the popularity of the government on Sunday among the ordinary citizens of Karachi. The question asked was loaded: did they want to change the political scene and, if yes, whom would they choose to vote for? Even after the mayhem of Saturday, almost all the people interviewed plumped for Musharraf in varying degrees, their objections, if any, were non-political and mostly based on high prices. Having garnered this extremely unexpected opinion from the man in the street, the TV channel conscientiously showed the results on its evening programme. The effect of the programme could not have been achieved by the government ministers had they gone from house to house canvassing the president.
There is no doubt that there is violence and disobedience from both parties fighting a legal battle at the Supreme Court. The lawyers-politicians and the government have both by turns refused to accept the verdict of the Court, but the media are not a part of this battle. The government must do its utmost not to add another party to the phalanx of elements now arrayed against it. From the point of view of cold-blooded strategy, this would be the right thing to do.
Meanwhile, Mr Mazhar Abbas, the indefatigable secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, has his job cut out for him. He has just received the coveted Press Freedom Award from the prestigious New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists for his fearless devotion to the cause of journalism in Pakistan over the decade. There is no one more deserving than him. Now he is in the thick of battle again to protect the hard-won freedoms of journalists in this country. The government would do well to engage the PFUJ in talks aimed at punishing officials responsible for the onslaught against the media on Saturday. The damage to General Pervez Musharraf’s proud flagship — a free and vibrant media — done by more-loyal-than-the-King officials is unmistaken and irrevocable. g

Talibanisation versus women

A TV breakfast anchor on Monday laughed while commenting on Ms Benazir Bhutto’s remark that she was under threat from Osama bin Laden. This shows total ignorance and denial of what is going on in Pakistan and obviously also shows lack of knowledge of the history of political intrigues that included money taken from bin Laden to oust Ms Bhutto from power in 1990. There is also a report from the imprisoned Ramzi Yousef that he had tried to kill her by exploding a device — unsuccessfully — at the Bilawal House in Karachi in the 1990s.
What should concentrate the mind of our TV anchors is the campaign being carried out in the Tribal Areas against women in general and women’s institutions in particular. They should also note that the religious parties have gone back to their edict of “no women prime minister in Islam” after a “one-time” exception made in the case of Ms Fatima Jinnah. The MMA vows to roll back the women’s seats that they included “under duress” in the 17th Amendment. In Swat in the NWFP, the latest news is that two girls’ schools have been bombed on Sunday. *