Pakistan’s
Efforts to Silence Dissenters Amplifies Their Causes.
In the age of social media, labelling people traitors,
infidels and foreign agents doesn’t necessarily inspire the self-censorship it
once did.
February 14, 2020
The colonial-era relic of “sedition”
is being used in present-day Pakistan to whip dissenting politicians, outspoken
journalists, writers, poets, artists, lawyers and rights activists.
The offense is defined in section
124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code that charges citizens with jeopardizing safety
and stability of the state, spreading hatred and feelings of disloyalty among
the people, and creating public disorder.
This section, which India’s first
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had once termed “highly objectionable and
obnoxious,” should have been scrapped after the end of the colonial era that
paved way for the emergence of two independent states of India and Pakistan out
of British India in 1947. But the legacy, among many others, lingers on to
silence opponents and tame the forthright and undaunted.
Charging political opponents with
“sedition” by labeling them “ghaddar” (traitor), anti-state, and foreign agents
to suppress their voices is an old tactic in Pakistan. But it has touched new
heights over the past year due to its arbitrary use to silence the critics and
opponents.
Fatima Jinah, sister of Pakistan’s
founder Muhammad Ali Jinah, who is officially known is Quaid-e-Azam or the
greatest leader, was among the first who was labelled as a threat to Pakistan.
She was then labeled as a foreign agent when she challenged the then -military
dictator Ayub Khan. Her death is shrouded in mystery, many believe she
did not die a natural death.
Also standing in the long row of
ghaddars, anti-state and foreign agents are the leaders who suffered years in
prisons and lost their wealth and properties before and after the independence
of Pakistan. They include Bengali politician and briefly Pakistan’s prime
minister, Huseyn Suhrawardy, ethnic Pashtun leaders Ghaffar Khan and Samad
Khan, Baloch leaders Ataullah Mengal and Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, and Sindhi
politician Ghulam Murtaza Syed.
“How could you question someone’s
patriotism” was the key question raised by a Pakistani court
while hearing a case concerning the arrest of civil rights activists in the
country’s federal capital Islamabad on January 28.
Justice Athar Minallah, the chief
justice of the Islamabad High Court, then granted post-arrest bail to 23
activists who were protesting the arrest of Manzoor Pashteen, leader of the
two-year-old civil rights movement PTM or Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection)
Movement. Pashteen was arrested in Pakistan’s
northwestern city of Peshawar on January 27 under five different charges,
including conspiracy and sedition.
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In what seems to be Pakistan’s new
normal, those following the state narrative on national, regional and
international issues in toto are the true patriots, while those
challenging the official line are reckoned among the ranks of traitors,
anti-state, foreign agents.
This standard of patriotism
encompasses a wide range of issues including national politics, regional
conflicts, relations with other states, and militant proxies with the fresh
addition of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the much-multibillion
project involving Chinese investment in infrastructure development.
It is as easy to understand as this:
When former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif questioned the military’s role in supporting proxies, he was loathed as
sympathetic toward India and was targeted with a vicious campaign of “Modi Ka
Jo Yar Hai, Ghaddar Hai” which means whoever is Modi’s friend, is a traitor.
Cyril Almeida, the journalist who reported the 2016 story linked above had to
temporarily leave Pakistan. In October 2019, Almeida announced his resignation from Dawn and
the end of his Sunday column.
On the contrary, no feathers were
ruffled when Prime Minister Imran Khan told the audience at a think tank event in New York in September
2019 that Pakistan’s army and military spy agency trained al-Qaeda and then
maintained links with the militants afterwards. Moreover, it was Imran Khan
who wished victory for Narendra Modi’s
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with the hope that his victory will pave way
for “some kind of settlement” in Kashmir.
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In fact, traitor, foreign agent and
infidel are the time-tested tools being used in Pakistan to silence and vilify
opponents. Many of the Taliban who conduct suicidal missions that target
individuals, places and political parties have been brainwashed about the faith
and religious views of their targets. For them, politicians like Benazir
Bhutto, Bashir Bilour, Salmaan Taseer and many others were infidels, out of the
ambit of Islam.
Similarly, once declared as traitor,
anti-state or a foreign agent, and that too by the state-backed propaganda
machine, an individual or group of individuals not only lose due standing in
the society, but also face dire threats to their lives.
For example, former spokesman for
the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistan military’s media wing,
Major General Asif Ghafoor warned the PTM leadership that “their time
is up” during a wide-ranging news conference at the military’s
general headquarters in April 2019, he accused them of getting money from
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) and India’s Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW). There were times when some nationalist leaders used to be
accused of working for and getting money from the Russian KGB.
The reasons behind leveling such
charges, coupled with raids on houses and offices, abductions and enforced
disappearances, is to restrict free speech ranging from individuals to groups
and political parties, forums, discussions and debates, opinions and comments,
conventional as well as social media.
The charges and arrests, threats and
abductions, taking television shows and interviews off the air and blocking
social media accounts are most likely intended to inspire self-censorship. But
unlike the past, such measures seem to be proving counterproductive in the age
of social media.
Filmmaker and actor Sarmad
Khoosat’s movie Zindagi Tamasha got more
publicity on social media when Pakistan’s Central Board of Film Censors advised
him against its release. A radical Islamic group had called for protests
against the film, which was scheduled to be released on January 24.
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The same month, authorities raided the offices of a Pakistani
publisher and confiscated Urdu translation copies of author Mohammed Hanif’s
book. Published in 2008 in English language, A Case of Exploding
Mangoes is a satire about the mystery surrounding the death of Pakistan
military dictator General Zia ul Haq in a plane crash in 1988. News about the
raid, with widespread condemnations and people’s quest to get more information
about the Urdu-translated version of the book, were everywhere on social media
within no time.
Pashteen’s January 27 arrest, apparently
meant to suppress his voice, triggered a debate on social media in Pakistan
besides attracting wide coverage internationally. It may have taken him months,
if not years, to get such an attention had he not been arrested.
Like Pashteen, a majority of the
leaders accused of sedition or labelled as anti-state and foreign agents,
demanded their political and social rights guaranteed under the constitution.
“We are not seeking a violent revolution, but we are determined to push
Pakistan back toward a constitutional order,” Pashteen wrote in a New York Times op-ed in
February 2019.
Then and now, the struggle is the
same. Only time has changed. And the changing times demand a change in the
approach. Instead of silencing the lawful demands of the peaceful citizens, it
is time for the state to accept and recognize their lawful rights.
Daud Khattak is Senior Editor for
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty’s Pashto language Mashaal Radio. Before joining RFE/RL, Khattak
worked for The News International and London’s Sunday Times in
Peshawar, Pakistan. He has also worked for Pajhwok Afghan News in Kabul. The
views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent those of RFE/RL.
