Asia Times: ANALYSIS: Turning point for Pakistan's media?



	March 20, 1999	atimes.com

Media/Technology

ANALYSIS: Turning point for Pakistan's media?
By Beena Sarwar

LAHORE - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesdayunanimously declared military courts established by thegovernment to fight terrrorism to be unconstitutional - to thedelight of journalists' unions.

Journalists associations are themselves contesting in the SupremeCourt the Sharif government's attempts to muzzle the media,which sparked a huge confrontation between the authorities andthe country's largest newspaper group, Jang.

The group, publishers of the big-selling ''Jang'' Urdu-languagedaily, which took the matter to the Supreme Court, has in out-of-court talks with the government last week been restored access tonewsprint stores and frozen bank accounts.

But the government backtracked only because of unprecedentedpublic condemnation and stiff resistance from workingjournalists and human rights crusaders across the country.

Sedition cases against Jang Group owner Shakilur Rahman,and editors of the dailies ''Aman'' and ''Parcham'' for printing anadvertisement of the Karachi-based political group MQM,considered anti-national by the government, have not beendropped.

A demand that the cases be withdrawn and laws regarding pressfreedom be made clear are included in a constitutional petitionfiled in the Supreme Court by Abdul Hameed Chapra, president ofthe Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.

The union's petition asks the Supreme Court to''direct the Respondents (the federal government and Ministry ofInterior) not to interfere with the freedom of the press bymalafide and undue harassment [and] not to interfere in anyprofessional work of the newspapers . . ."

Other government controls over the media that the union wants removedinclude the abolition of the Ministry of Informationitself, as a ''burden on the exchequer and being an instrument ofrepression and dissemination of misinformation."

Sharif should not need a Supreme Court directive to abolishthe ministry - this was an election promise of his ruling partyin its campaign in 1996-97. The ministry is headed by MushahidHussain, a respected former editor of ''The Muslim'' newspaper.

Press freedom was guaranteed by Pakistan's reveredcreator, independence leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who said''protect those journalists who are doing their duty and who areserving both the public and the government by criticizing thegovernment freely, independently, honestly . . ."

Journalists, lawyers, non-governmental organisations, tradeunions, artists and opposition political parties have ralliedtogether in the present fight for press freedom. Mammoth protestmarches and demonstration have been organized.

All Pakistan's political parties excluding the ruling MuslimLeague have been openly supportive of the campaign for pressfreedom and the demand for the removal of state controlover the electronic media which at present is the ''government'smouthpiece,'' according to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The government has used its absolute control of the electronicmedia to black out political opponents and artists it calls''anti-national'' like Pakistan's most famous rock band, Junoon,and Imran Khan, cricketer-turned-politician, who says his effortsto raise money for his cancer hospital in Lahore has suffered.

The unanimous rejection by all nine judges of the SupremeCourt of the government's plea that the military tribunals wereneeded to deliver speedy justice was evidence of the judiciary'sresolve to assert its role as the protector of the constitution.

Premier Sharif has seemingly been bent on hammering home thesupremacy of the executive since he took over two years ago. Inhighly controversial confrontations he has tamed the presidencyand secured the exit of both a chief justice and army chief.

''The current judicial activism of the Supreme Court judgesmight be an attempt to restore its lost credibility,'' a lawminister in a former Pakistan People's Party government, IqbalHayder, commented earlier this year.

(Inter Press Service)