As the government continues to claim that there are no curbs on expression in Pakistan, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has confirmed that its cyber wing has started an enquiry against many dissenting voices, including mainstream journalists.
The journalists are accused of orchestrating a social media campaign that could have offended the visiting Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. They had posted a picture of slain journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi on their personal social media accounts during the Prince’s visit to Pakistan.
Khashoggi was a progressive journalist from Saudi Arabia, who was murdered at the Saudi consulate by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
According to FIA, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior is the complainant against renowned journalists Matiullah Jan, Murtaza Solangi and many more. These journalists were coincidentally the first major casualties of the current government’s ‘media handling’, in which the media industry at large, but especially progressive media outlets and journalists, have been given a financial death sentence.
Pakistan’s media industry has reached its lowest ebb, with thousands of media practitioners out of work and dozens of media outlets shut down. So far, systematic financial curbs have been the predominant modus operandi in the government’s efforts to silence dissent.
Of course, other equally sinister and invisible tactics have been at play; the media fraternity has been successfully divided and organisations seem to be in competition with one another to become ‘more acceptable’ to those with a history of silencing the media.
Different media groups have come up with self-annihilating simulacra of their very own journalist unions, editors’ bodies and newspaper societies that spend most of their energies trying to delegitimise each other, rather than to advocate for freedom of expression.
It is no surprise that almost none of these bodies have out-rightly condemned this most recent crackdown on dissenting voices, based on frivolous accusations of putting up a slain journalist’s picture. It is now high time for Pakistan’s media stakeholders to wake up and smell the roses and fight back against the thorns that have ensnared the industry.
It is suicidal to cherish the financial deaths of a few of the messengers of truth, knowing that the angel of death is knocking on the doors of almost every media house in the country. Surviving media owners across the country are having to lay off employees consistently, sell their assets just to linger on and continue to run up debts to the point of no return.
If the whole media industry does not unite to deal with the almost certain death of the freedom of expression, oppressors will gain more confidence and launch other types of crackdowns, using state agencies to harass those who make the tiniest of ‘mistakes’, like posting a picture of a slain journalist.
If Pakistan is to prosper, it cannot do so while all dissenting voices are silenced one by one. Pakistan’s current government is strong because other powerful entities appear to be on the same page, and are offering it maximum support – for now. But times change.
And when the oppressor becomes the oppressed, freedom of expression and a free press are the only salvation. With hope, history will not repeat itself and the government will learn from its predecessors.
Silencing dissent is only an investment in self-destruction. *