Daily Times

Turkey under President Erdogan is hurtling down a very dangerous path.  One year on from the failed coup — he has proven himself a man who knows how to hold a grudge. A macabre outburst has seen him vowing to oversee the head rolling of those who had plotted his downfall. The lesson here to be learned is this: if one is going in for the political kill — one had better ensure the deal is sealed.

Under his rule, Ankara has inched its way towards authoritarian rule. This month kicked off with the rounding up of 10 human rights defenders on trumped up charges of helping an armed terrorist organisation without being a member. Among those facing trial is the Turkish director of Amnesty International.

Leaving nothing to chance, Erdogan this week extended for the fourth time the country’s state of emergency in the post-coup environment. The last year has seen some 170 news organisations shut down and 81 journalists detained.

Thus, like the majority of Pakistan’s media workers — we routinely thank our lucky-star-and-crescent-moon that we are working where we do. Meaning that since the day of Gen Musharraf’s military dictatorship most of us have had nothing to fear (relatively speaking) in terms of what we can and cannot say, can and cannot print. Provided of course that everything has been corroborated and fact-checked several times. And most of us understand that golden reporting rule dictating that single anonymous sources just will not do; though this is something that certain international outlets routinely flaunt. This is borne of an inherent hubris that stipulates that their coverage will always be more accurate and professionally executed than that offered up by their Pakistani colleagues.

This is unfair. Pakistani journalists take their job very seriously, even if we do so under less than ideal circumstances. What we do find surprising, however, is the extent to which the breathing space for an independent media has shrunk under democratic rule. That the civilian leadership seems helllbent on kowtowing to the security establishment is one thing. It is not something we welcome. It makes doing our job that much harder. But that is their business, ours is to call them out on this. Yet when the political establishment takes it upon itself to busy itself with protecting the image of that other leadership ruling Pakistan — it would do well to understand that it does not speak in our name. *

Published in Daily Times, July 19th, 2017.