Wednesday, September 29, 2021
#Pakistan - Curbing media independence
By Usama Khilji
THERE has been a lot of talk by government ministers and on social media about the menace of ‘fake news’ — a term for misinformation and disinformation popularised by former US president Trump to delegitimise media criticism against him — and how the near mysterious Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) proposal is the saviour we have all been waiting for so that Pakistanis can finally access authentic information. Does this assumption hold legitimacy?
The PMDA is also said to be the solution to all the problems faced by the Pakistani media — delayed salaries, wage determination, content moderation, etc but the supporters of this proposal, mostly only the proposers themselves as the proposed ordinance has been rejected by all major stakeholders including journalist bodies, bar councils, civil society groups, digital media collectives, etc are conveniently overlooking two major factors.
First, the state has played a major role in contributing to the financial crunch the media faces, as well as the dismal state of media freedom in the country. The state covertly stopped distribution of newspapers that merely reported events that took place in government meetings, had cable operators take television channels that were critical of state policies to the end of the channel list, and stopped advertising in these channels and newspapers that were critical, which undermined the right to information of readers and viewers of government messaging apart from leading to salary cuts only because the journalists chose to stick to reporting the truth rather than toeing the state’s line. Such acts created an environment where only media platforms willing to do public relations for the state have been able to function freely, with anchors even there feeling pressure to toe a certain line.
Read: This is the first govt that has left media completely independent, says PM Imran
Major opposition figures have been barred from appearing on television, and anchors that asked tough questions have lost their jobs one by one, in most cases their production crews going down with them as well. I have been asked by television producers to ‘please keep our jobs in mind’ when commenting on issues deemed unpleasant by the state, clearly pointing to the chilling effect all these acts have had on the media where self-censorship is now routine and jobs are held hostage.
The way forward lies in working with the media and accepting its responsibility and rights.
Second, the PMDA in its current form will cause further job insecurity in the media. When media organisations have to renew licences every year — much like how non-governmental organisations have had to do in the past few years — at the whim of a state-controlled regulator, they will constantly be navigating a thin line, walking on eggshells, and reflecting all other associated idioms that describe a media having a gun held to its head in the form of licence non-renewal, exorbitant fines or jail terms for violating government-mandated terms. The media organisations and their employees that choose to stay independent will have to suffer more.
Should the media be regulated by the very state that the media is supposed to hold accountable? The answer is a no-brainer, but state propaganda is washing logic away. A Grade 22 officer of the government has no business heading a ‘ministry of truth’, and should remain the figment of a fictional Orwellian state. The PMDA also will have its own tribunal that can only be appealed against at the Supreme Court, again creating hurdles in the way of due process, and lending an additional portfolio of arbitration of truth to the state-run regulator.
This brings us to the menace of ‘fake news’. Misinformation is often news that is inaccurate or false and shared without the intention to deceive. Disinformation, on the other hand, is information that is shared to deliberately deceive and mislead the public. Whereas the news media is of course given to errors, and disinformation can also be fed through it, the state is in no position to arbitrate the truth. The state has a strong information apparatus through which it can publicise its own version of matters, including on digital and social media.
More importantly, what will be the consequences of disinformation being shared by state officials and institutions? Branding citizens as traitors without any proof, spreading rumours about political opponents, deliberately delegitimising journalists and activists that report facts and hold the state accountable, and spreading propaganda. Even Fatima Jinnah was accused of being a ‘foreign agent’ by dictator Ayub Khan with no evidence in order to win an election, so such tactics are not new either. Not to forget ministers accusing opposition members of smuggling drugs, claiming there are videos, but never making them public. Will there ever be accountability for such excesses and partisan propaganda?
The way forward rests in working with the media and accepting its responsibility and rights provided by the Constitution. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, the All Pakistan Newspaper Society, the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, the Pakistan Broadcasters Association and the Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors have put up a united front rejecting the PMDA, held a protest outside parliament during the president’s address to a joint sitting, and the government is now holding consultations with a range of stakeholders on the PMDA.
What was the purpose of the information ministry in creating such a hullabaloo? Why does the government not consult stakeholders first, like the human rights ministry did for the journalists’ protection bill when it comes to these regulatory proposals? And will the consultations take the feedback into account, or will it be another eyewash to borrow legitimacy and then go ahead with what was decided before? Neither is going to be easy, but the state must make apparent its desire to protect the media and work with it to strengthen accountability in Pakistan rather than just protect its own reputation.
Media groups are fully capable of strengthening their own code of conduct for fact-checking, and for regulating rights and wages of their workers which is of utmost importance. If they do not act, the state may abuse this loophole to occupy further space as it is attempting to right now.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1648890/curbing-media-independence
US generals express concern over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in wake of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
‘Living in a cave is no life’: Pakistani villagers trapped by Taliban and poverty
“Don’t talk to me about the government. They don’t help.” Ninety-year-old Shah Mast is angry. He has been living in the cave he calls home for seven years, ever since an offensive by the Pakistan army against the Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed his home. “I swear to God, no one has helped us. No charity or anything,” he says. In 2014, the Pakistani army began an offensive against insurgents in the Tirah valley close to Afghanistan, after negotiations with the militants broke down. What followed was a violent campaign to root out the fighters, whose main objective is to overthrow the Pakistani government. In August 2017, Lt Gen Asif Ghafoor announced the mission complete, but the battle continues today. While the Taliban was sweeping to power in neighbouring Afghanistan a month ago, the TTP carried out more attacks against the Pakistan army in the border region of North Waziristan, just south of Tirah. In September alone, 10 soldiers were killed in TTP attacks. The recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan threatens to fuel instability in the mountainous border region, meaning those displaced may never be able to return home.
The Pakistani government in Islamabad is refusing to grant the families the status of internally displaced people (IDPs) as officials say they can return home. But the army will not let them return while the fighting continues. Even if they were allowed, many families living in the caves could not afford the journey and their homes have been destroyed.Militant Islamist groups around the world have been emboldened by what they see as the Taliban victory over the US, but none more so than those in Pakistan. On 5 September, a suicide bomber drove his motorcycle into a Frontier Corps post in Quetta, a city in Balochistan province, killing at least four of the paramilitary force and injuring 18 civilians. The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack. On 20 September, the England men’s and women’s cricket teams called off their tour of Pakistan, citing security concerns. Furthermore, Afghanistan’s access to financial resources, such as grants and loans, has been frozen by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Without the funds to purchase goods from Pakistan and with foreign direct investment – a major source of external financing in developing countries – being severely curtailed, Pakistan’s economic woes look likely to intensify. According to the World Bank, Pakistan’s rate of inflation is close to 10%, nearly 4 percentage points above that of war-torn Afghanistan. As a country reliant on imports, including energy and now food, Pakistan is dangerously susceptible to the price fluctuations that drive inflation. Sitting on his bed in the hot and airless cave, Mast says he and his family are in trouble. With rising inflation and a lack of daily labouring work for his sons, the family are struggling to feed themselves. He has three wives and 21 children – nine sons and 12 daughters. One of his sons is still able to find work in a nearby quarry and another is a shepherd. He says he would have liked his daughters to be educated and to work, but this has not been an option. “We can’t afford food, so how could we afford books?” Mast was forced to flee his village in the Tirah valley of Pakistan with about 50 members of his extended family. He travelled on foot, first crossing over the border to Nangarhar in Afghanistan, before crossing back into Pakistan and finally settling more than 80 miles (130km) from his home in the cave complex close to the village of Charwazgi Mulankali, near Peshawar. The journey was a gruelling one. He and his family walked for three days over the harsh rocky landscape. They led the goats and sheep saved from the attacks, but lost many of them on the journey. According to Mast, there was no warning from the army of their impending attack and the animals were all they had time to take. “We had to leave late at night when the strikes started. We left everything behind.” Perched above an arid riverbed and pockmarked across the rugged hillside, the cave complex houses about 100 families, all from Tirah. The dark caves keep their heat in the winter and stay cool in the summer, fortunately for the residents as temperatures can reach 40C (104F) in Peshawar. Inside the caves, families hang colourful sheets and fabric over the walls for decoration and to conserve the heat. Each home relies on solar power for electricity and Mast hangs a single lightbulb and a small fan from the ceiling above his bed. Outside, soot climbs the walls from the fire lit daily for cooking. Fire pits and small clay ovens are dug into the ground outside the caves belonging to the women. Water is scarce, collected from a single well. For food, Mast and his family either sell or kill one of his son’s flock, or walk across the rocky riverbed and up the hill opposite to the highway that connects Peshawar to Jalalabad, where a scattering of shops line the road. Aftab Ali, 14, sits in a dark and sparsely decorated cave he shares with his parents and three siblings. Aftab wants to go to university to study medicine but with his family facing such hardship, he does not think that will now be possible. His father used to juggle two jobs as a day labourer and a nightwatchman at the industrial estate in nearby Bara, but his daytime work has all dried up. Aftab and his family have a similar story to Mast’s. Once fighting broke out between the TTP and the army, they were forced to flee and walked the same journey from Tirah to Charwazgi Mulankali. As the midday heat rises from the dry riverbed below the caves, young girls dressed in the traditional brown burqa begin to flow down the hillside from the local madrasa, or Islamic school. Aftab’s neighbour, Khayal Muhammad, watches them and laughs when he says the name of the village – Charwazgi Mulankali means the “village of scholars”. The irony is not lost on him. “There is only one primary school in the area. The problem is no one can afford the transport to get to the secondary school.” Muhammad is less concerned with the financial situation than with the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan. The increased security threat is hampering his chances of returning home. “Almost all the people living here in the caves want to go home, but the army won’t let us back as the situation is not safe,” he says. “The army didn’t have enough intelligence. When the villagers came out of their homes the army thought they were TTP.” Pakistan’s financial woes, and the prospect of an emboldened TTP wreaking havoc across the country, mean it is likely that the families will have to wait longer to return home. If the government recognised the community from Tirah as IDP, they might receive aid. Until then, Muhammad’s demands are simple: “Either recognise us as internally displaced people or allow us back to our homes. Living in limbo in a cave is no life.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/29/living-in-a-cave-is-no-life-pakistani-villagers-trapped-by-taliban-and-poverty