Abstract
Pakistan is a country in the paradoxical position of having one of the most outspoken and powerful media in the world while being one of the world’s deadliest countries for journalists. On the face of it, this may not appear paradoxical – surely it is precisely the outspokenness of the media that makes it so threatening and therefore a target. In fact, it is the selective self-censorship of most of the press which leaves individual journalists exposed when they step outside the rules of what can and can’t be freely discussed. Doing away with that self-censorship is the most urgent concern in the battle for free expression.
The influence of the press can be noted in the fact that prime time TV in Pakistan is not composed of reality shows or comedies or thrillers, but political talk shows – which sometimes appear a mix of all of the above. When the most powerful talk show hosts speak, the nation listens. The man who has most cause to know the influence of the media is General Musharraf, whose fall from power is directly linked to the campaign waged against him by news channels, in tandem with lawyers seeking the restoration of the chief justice.
But even in the heady days when a free press stood up to a dictator, there was a limit to how far it was willing to go. Musharraf must go, elections must be held – but little was said of the all-pervasive role of the army and intelligence agencies in Pakistan. In a country too often obsessed with outward appearance it was ultimately cosmetic rather than structural changes the press asked for. So today, while civilian politicians are pilloried in the press, there is relative silence on the role of the army and intelligence agencies (with the exception of a few, brave journalists). Given that military intervention into political life is so entrenched, and every few months there are rumours of a fresh military coup, it does democracy no favours to turn a blind eye to the people who are really responsible for much of the mess in which Pakistan finds itself.
Nowhere is self-censorship of the press more notable than in the case of Balochistan, the most politically and economically marginalised province in the country, and a quagmire of competing interests. It is in Balochistan that most American drone attacks take place, in Balochistan that the Quetta Shura (composed of top leadership of the Afghan Taliban, with rumoured links to the ISI, Pakistan intelligence) is based, and in Balochistan that separatists have been waging a war against the central government, on and off, for decades. Yet very little news ever comes out of Balochistan, even while a large percentage of the journalists who are killed in Pakistan are reporting from there. These journalists are almost always local to the area – reporters from outside rarely venture there. Admittedly, this is almost entirely because of army restrictions – the military keeps the press out on the grounds that it’s conducting sensitive military operations there (an ongoing situation for years). But where is the press’s attempt to fight back against this?
A press which can take down a dictator can certainly unite to try and reverse the army’s policy on the media in Balochistan – or find ways to give citizen journalists from the province prominence in media outlets. Instead what we have is a news blackout, while Baloch journalists, political activists, students and lawyers are ‘disappeared’ or tortured or killed.
Changing this will take courage, of course. The murdered journalists are testimony to the danger. But a press that prides itself on its power and independence only shames itself if it allows members of its tribe to be isolated and targeted. The refusal of an extremely powerful press to discuss the wall of silence around Balochistan is what makes the silence self-censorship. Tucking stories away at the bottom of news reports or the inside pages, on those rare instances when it’s mentioned at all, makes things even worse – it allows the charade of pretending that there is no news blackout. But there is, and the media has allowed itself to be entirely complicit. ❒