Daily Times

Recently, the government of Pakistan has not only dismissed but also documented a full-fledged academic complaint dossier that discarded the BBC story regarding HR violations in FATA by the Pakistani security forces as unjustifiable, concocted, unfounded, biased and partisan, arguing that BBC failed to articulate the respective viewpoints of all stakeholders. It also argued the said report was published without citing credible sources. While carrying out a detailed analysis of the “baseless accusations” levelled against the Pakistani military, Pakistani government holds that BBC’s report did not observe fidelity to its own editorial guidelines thereby clearly negating the international journalistic ethics regarding the broad intercultural consensus that standards of truth and objectivity should be central values of journalism.

”Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Pakistan’s long battle with militants as part of the post-9/11 war on terror”. The report also finds that rather than seeking to comply and protect the human rights safeguard/protocols of Pakistan’s formal criminal justice system in the tribal areas, the Pakistani agencies have been practicing old and new security laws that allegedly authorize prolonged, arbitrary, preventive detention which breaches international human rights law (IHRL). The Pakistan government, according to the report, has made some attempts to improve the human rights situation in the tribal areas but these reforms fall short of meeting the norms of justice under the regular criminal justice system of Pakistan.

Pakistan military’s media wing on last Monday issued a strongly worded response to a BBC story that documented alleged human rights abuses in the tribal areas of former Fata, and termed the report a “pack of lies”. In view of Pakistan, evidence of murder and torture by soldiers and insurgents is surfacing only now. The BBC has hardly gained access to some of the victims of the war. The said report has been prepared in gross violation of journalistic ethics.

Objectively, the basic principles of journalistic codes of ethics are rightly designed as guides through numerous difficulties because of the brewing conflicts of interest to assist journalists in dealing with ethical dilemmas. But clearly, the codes and canons provide journalists with a framework for self-appraisal based on self-correction. Journalism is guided by five important values. The first and foremost is honesty: a journalist should not make up news or share news that give off wrong or false impressions. The second is none but independence: a journalist should avoid topics they have had an interest in. The third is worth mention fairness: a journalist should not tell the truth if caters bad intentions. The fourth is certainly productiveness: a journalist should work hard to try to gather all the facts that need to cover the story. The last but not least is the value of pride: a journalist needs to be able to earn the credit of their work, bad or good. Therefore, the potential harm posed by news accounts– by using deceptive tactics to secure stories, and the increasing prevalence of infotainment content –are all relevant references of ethical journalism.

Objectively, the basic principles of journalistic codes of ethics are rightly designed as guides through numerous difficulties because of the brewing conflicts of interest to assist journalists in dealing with ethical dilemmas

As for the FATA, there has been and continues to be, a non-international armed conflict in some parts of FATA, between the Pakistan state and the Taliban and other armed groups. However, there are other parts of FATA and PATA to which the “Actions in Aid of Civil Power Regulations” (AACPR) could be applied. Yet the AACPR cannot be applied to the FATA as a whole. The AACPR must recognise the different sets of rules that apply under international law in situations of armed conflict and outside of situations of armed conflict. Arguably, the universal established rules should by default reflect the standard position under international law outside of armed conflict, which is to provide for a human rights and law enforcement standards framework, and only permit recourse to the more permissive rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) in those particular situations and territories that actually constitute an armed conflict. The FATA has now been rightly merged into the KP province. Consequently, the fabled ‘buffer zone’ of Curzon and British India remains no more.

However, the issue of BBC’ news reporting in terms of both morality and legality could hardly be examined without referring Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which sets standards for when it is appropriate to place restrictions on freedom of expression. Veritably, ICCPR maintains that everyone has the right to freedom of expression – and restrictions on this right are only allowed when they are “provided by law and are necessary for: (a) the respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) for the protection of national security or of the public order, or of public health or morals.” And yet, informing the public via serving as news watchdog function regularly requires journalists to formally negotiate questions of privacy, autonomy, community engagement, and the potentially damaging effects of providing information that individuals and governments would rather withhold.

Moreover, Her Majesty’s established Charter regarding the BBC and other UK’s publishers holds paramount significance. The Royal Charter was formally approved by the Queen in October 2013. However, publishers have largely chosen not to sign up to the voluntary system, sticking instead with their own regulator Is a key part of the Royal Charter plan was a law– requiring publishers to pay both sides’ costs in a privacy or libel case, even if they won – unless they signed up to the official press regulator. This has been passed by UK’s Parliament — as section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

Under the said Charter, Ofcom is the right broad forum to receive BBC complaints. The complaint procedure system argues the Ofcom online standards complaints must in the first instance be resolved by the BBC itself at the initial stage in accordance with the BBC’s established criteria. Subsequently, the BBC must be informing complainants of Ofcom under this arrangement when they are provided with the BBC’s final view. The Referral Procedure to Ofcom consist of (1) if a complainant is not satisfied with the resolution of an online standards complaint by the BBC, he/she may refer the complaint and the BBC’s final view on it to Ofcom. (2) Ofcom will duly consider whether an online standards complaint raises potentially substantive issues under the relevant editorial guidelines which warrant consideration by Ofcom. (3) Ofcom will not normally consider an online standards complaint which was not made to the BBC in accordance with the time limits in the BBC’s complaints procedures.

As for the justification of the Pakistani lodged complaint, prima facie, it sets to register a genuine concern regarding the tarnished image of Pakistan security forces caused by an irresponsible BBC report and hence, the lucid frame of argumentation– chartered by the Government of Pakistan blaming the report content as fallacious, polarized and fictitious-holds ground.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan