Approximately two and a half years ago, Imran Khan and his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – the “party of justice” – contested the 2018 general elections of Pakistan and achieved a comfortable victory, consequently breaking the thirty-year long stronghold of the two political dynasties, namely the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. They campaigned on the basis of bringing about change in a country struggling with fighting corruption at every bureaucratic or political level; the public welcomed this change with open arms. The media sector especially was tired of having its voice, on any controversial topic, silenced by the numerous military dictatorships or even by the installed democratic governments throughout Pakistan’s short history. Hence, Imran Khan came into power with strong public and media backing, in the hope that the difficult times of Pakistan were making a turn for the better.
Journalists protesting against media censorship
Half of the five-year term of the new government is already done but things are far from better. This article is not a commentary on the performance of the Khan administration, but instead only aims to explain how Islamabad has managed to increase censorship, even more than was prevalent in the four dictatorships Pakistan went through. Many independent, international news outlets have taken notice of this curtailing of media freedom. The problem stems directly from the indication that the PTI heavily relied upon the military establishment to rise to power. Consequently, it has been the media wing of the armed forces of Pakistan, namely the ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations), which has repeatedly removed or banned the publication of several anti-establishment news pieces from notable newspapers like the Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English publication in circulation. Freedom of speech for reporters and journalists means that they can write or say anything with the condition that it is strictly pro-government. The evidence points towards the notion of people realizing that the Khan administration may just be a puppet head with its strings firmly in someone else’s hands.
Representatives of the government, like the advisor to the prime minister on information and broadcasting, have strictly declared these allegations as false, explicitly stating that these people can write or say anything they want. Delegates of the ISPR have remained silent or offered a ‘no comment’ stance when this question is inevitably raised at every international platform. However, one thing is clear. News agencies with a leftist or more democratic approach are being targeted, that too, through various methods. Their advertising rights are sometimes cancelled altogether or excuses to do so are given, specifically to these outlets, and the resulting backlash is always suppressed. Sometimes, dissenting opinions presented on national television are censored or removed altogether if the message is thought to be “too powerful”.
All in all, the government of Pakistan, through any avenue possible, has decided to implement extremely draconian regulations on any information going out to the public. Media specialists and analysts have commented that any news aired nationally has been passed through filters; anything “revolutionary” is turned into a pro-government message, something that does not turn the people against the authorities. Policies such as these have been seen before in totalitarian states such as Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, where the power rested with a select few individuals of the political or military elite. That is not to say that Pakistan has turned into an authoritarian state; it looks like a pure democracy with fully functioning and independent news agencies from the outside, and one could easily be fooled by this facade. The real question then becomes whether the liberal or leftist groups of the country will be able to do anything about this, or whether they will be fashionably albeit quietly suppressed from making any noise about this peculiar matter.
