Daily Times

The ongoing crackdown through FIA on liberal and democratic social media activists, supposedly to protect the security forces from unwarranted criticism through their online contents seems a flashback from 1999. Around the same time of the year in 1999, as imminent as just five months before the second government of Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Musharraf, the government was so obsessed with controlling everything from parliament to military and judiciary that, in its frenzy, it took to control the dissenting press and media. The age of virtual social media and private TV channels had not dawned yet, so it was just journalists and political commentators in the print media who could have effectively exercised the right of expression and speech. The government had already rendered opposition political parties hopeless as it hounded their leaders with sham accountability cases.

Hardly tolerant of any criticism, the then Nawaz government literally waged war on those media groups and persons who were critical of the government’s dictatorial streak in its overall conduct coupled with its suspicious economic dealings. The then most vocal voices such as Najam Sethi and Husain Haqqani were kidnapped in the middle of the night by police and intelligence agencies on most flimsy charges. For instance, Sethi was charged with ‘Condemnation of the Creation of the State and Advocacy of Abolition of its Sovereignty’ and ‘Promoting Enmity between Different Groups’. He was set to be tried for treason if only the Supreme Court had not rejected those charges.

Others such as Imtiaz Alam, Ejaz Haider, and countless more continued to face government harassment through phone-tapping, threatening calls and letters, and even through acts of arson. Media groups such as Jang and Sethi’s The Friday Times were blackmailed with a restriction on newsprint and concocted tax evasion notices. Those who witnessed that time saw the Daily Jang and The News, each of which typically ran around two dozen pages, reduced to just four pages. The crackdown on media preceded by highhandedness with other institutions of the state then had left the government with hardly any admirers in the country. Hence five months later, we saw no mourners when the military in an unconstitutional coup sent the government home and arrested the prime minister.

In 2017, when over the last decade social media has ushered in an altogether new era of public expression, it has emerged as a mightier means than conventional print and electronic media regarding criticism and demands for accountability of the government and all institutions under it. Except for outright blasphemy, slanderous campaigns, invectives, and abusive use of the expression, the citizens have the inviolable right of speech and expression to criticise the government, its institutions including military, and the state policies, as provided in article 19 of the constitution of Pakistan. After all, the constitution recognises the people of Pakistan as its citizens and not subjects; and those represent government through its various institutions are custodians of public trust people repose in the constitution of the country and not divine vicegerents beyond reproach.

Only if the government can see the rise of social media with democratic spirit — will it realise that social media has the potential to catalyse our evolution into a more democratic polity

Many in media have rightly termed this crackdown on social media activists as silencing of the dissent. Earlier this year, five bloggers were abducted by intelligence agencies on the charges of sharing anti-state and blasphemous contents online. On the pressure from media, social media and international organisations such as the UN, four of those were then silently released. What’s apparent is they were pro-democracy, mainly critical of military generals’ meddling in the politics and of the sectarian outfits enjoying all the freedom to run their nefarious activities against religious minorities.

Only if the government can see the rise of social media with the democratic spirit, it will realise that social media has a potential to catalyse our evolution into a more democratic polity. There are so many, but just two instances should drive the print here. In the wake of that restive ‘Rejected’ tweet from military’s ISPR when no political party, within government or in opposition, had enough conscience to criticise and take a stand against that tweet, it were these social media activists of democratic leaning who grilled the ISPR to the level that finally ISPR had to withdraw that tweet and settle the Dawn Leaks report. Similarly, it was the social media activists who made the footage of the collapsing stage during a show of a local TV in a township of a housing tycoon so viral that the TV channels, reluctant due to a possible loss of revenue, had to pick that news after almost a week.

While the action against sectarian hate-speech is nowhere to be seen, the ongoing harassment of social media activists won’t strengthen the government or endear it to the military establishment. In fact the government will lose the very ground — of people’s trust — it derives its legitimacy from.

The writer is a sociologist with interest in history and politics. He’s accessible on Twitter @ZulfiRao1