The Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) has released the Pakistan Media Freedom – 2021 at just the right time; detailing how journalists as well as media houses faced increasing censorship, harassment, threats, intimidation, even murders and financial strangulation throughout the year alongside the government’s continued attempts to exercise complete control over it “by hook or by crook”.
It has also mentioned, of course, that the government has not only taken no notice of the problems of this industry, it has also accused it of spreading lies and fake news besides pursuing the very controversial Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA). But the worst instances relate to kidnapping, harassment, torture and killing of media workers for which the state has yet to take effective action. For 2021 alone, the report has identified no less than five journalists that lost their lives in the line of duty as the state looked on.
Perhaps the most gruesome murder of them all was of Karachi’s social media activist and community journalist Nazim Jokhio, whose only crime was uploading a video alleged Arab hunters illegally killing extinct birds on the outskirts of Karachi in November, 2021. When he didn’t comply with orders from the local feudal lord who hosted the Arab hunters to remove the video, he was simply picked up, tortured mercilessly, and killed. His body was dumped in an open field.
This happened when the political party that campaigned endlessly against this sort of illegal hunting was in power, yet it bothered nobody in government; at least not enough to do more than issue a half-a-line of condemnation. Nine journalists also lost their lives to Covid last year. That’s because while most people were locked down in the relative safety of their homes, these people had to be in the field to earn their bread. Yet they are not even forgotten heroes of this fight, they are just forgotten because the government neither supported them while they were alive nor celebrated them after they died.
The report also very rightly notes that the pandemic alone is not responsible for the severe financial crunch faced by the media industry. This problem started long before it, and the government played the central part in this as well. The crisis made things worse, no doubt, but the real problems were caused by “lack of recoveries, unjust distribution of government advertisements, non-payment of dues by federal and provincial governments and also the private sector”. Cut-down in salaries and failure to pay on time also pushed two journalists to take their own lives last year.
The most important theme in the report, other than the deaths, is the government’s treatment of the media. It names journalists whose shows have been blocked half-way, who’ve been issued notices by state institutions for their critical coverage of landmark projects, who’ve been taken off-air altogether because their programs and articles offended those in power, and also those who’ve been issued contempt notices just for reporting the news. It hints at a coordinated effort by the state and its institutions to control the flow of news in the whole country.
The government’s attempt to shove PMDA down the media’s throats is more proof of this. It has never explained the law of the land is not enough to deal with issues relating to the media – the same argument that made the Modi government in India back down from a similar stranglehold on the media – and why must there be tribunals, commissions, jail terms, fines; and all overseen by a bureaucrat.
Not known for being front-foot about such matters, CPNE has nonetheless taken a very important stand by releasing this report just when the government is making the most naked attempts to completely control it.
It has acknowledged that the industry faces an existential crisis. Now this effort must push civil society to raise questions about the position the government wants to give what has become, all over the world, the most important pillar of state.
Appreciated as this report is, though, it would do no good for CPNE to just sit on it, so to speak, now that it has been released. Since it can reach the very top of the food chain in Islamabad, it must now press for answers. Then only will this effort come full circle.