Is Pakistan going to curb freedom of expression in online spaces as well?

By Rashid Munir 

In Pakistan, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to speak our mind. The mainstream society has been censured to an extent where any deviation from the well-beaten path is deemed criminal, and the ‘perpetrators’ are left to face the music in case any of the many insecure souls wandering out and about find their way of life a bit too ‘liberal’ for their liking.

The word ‘liberal’ itself contains an interesting – but sometimes, dangerous – connotation in the Islamic Republic. In drawing room conversations, invoking a liberal tag can result in stern admonition, but in other circles, there can be consequences as severe as bodily harm and even death. Even though no one stops and thinks twice as to what being a liberal in a country with institutionalized discrimination entails, we nonetheless have a thriving minority of people who dare to take on the status quo and voice their opinions about the asymmetric power the more conservative segment of the society in Pakistan enjoys.

In such a situation where the deck is stacked against them, the small flock of liberals in Pakistan mostly keeps their attitudes to their personal lives, or dares to venture on the various social media websites frequently. Invariably managed by the ‘westerners’ who live by values such as freedom of expression, these English-language based websites provide a safe environment for people to freely talk, and sometimes take challenging stances on sensitive issues anonymously. Over time, a trend has emerged where the interwebs have started being populated by the educated, liberal minority in Pakistan. This is the place they know best and love, and for better or for worse, the liberals have migrated to online forums, for fear of their lives or for other reasons.

But now, the tables have turned, and how rapidly so. Gone are the days when the only memes you’d see on your social media news feed were either banal jokes or lame mumbo-jumbo. Maybe it is the case that the conservatives in Pakistan have managed to ban all difference from the Pakistani social life so perfectly that the thriving online forums teeming with liberals have been deemed such a threat. But whatever the reason, it seems that more and more conservative organizations are using the social media websites for propagating their own brands of morality.

In recent times, the conservatives have caught up with the liberals in the online communities, and have started using social media websites for furthering their own opinions.To match the sensitive jokes that are meant to make people think, a highly restrictive brand of religious views is being aired on social media now, combined with savvy graphics and rabble-rousing pictures.

Now, there is nothing wrong with doing so, per se. The notion behind freedom of expression necessitates that all opinions be given a chance. The trouble, however, is that the rising number of conservative activity on social media portends a somewhat troubling trend. One the one hand, the room for all faiths and personal opinions that had been so carefully cultivated through the social forums is now being slowly eradicated in favor of a conservative outlook on life that deems all difference as dangerous.

But more importantly though, with the bevy of legislation putting all sorts of checks on online activity, through which the state apparatus can keep tabs on all citizens, it is very likely that such laws will be abused to target the free-minded folks in the republic. Not just that, the extremely undesirable attitudes that bully free thought by using pejorative terms such as ‘desi liberals’, or the madness that operates around heinous punishments for all sorts of made-up crimes, is being exported onto the inter-tubes as well.

If this tendency keeps on increasing, we could very well be seeing situations where people are being censured for expressing their mind online. Pakistan’s public sphere is already devoid of any accommodating room, and in such a scenario, the savvy social media websites that were the domain where liberals went to find some breathing roomwould become tainted as well. By the looks of it all in fact, we may soon inhabit online spaces that are just as restrictive as the ones we occupy physically.