Pakistan eyes stronger democracy through safer journalism
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Global annual indexes of recognized media watchdogs, including Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, International Federation of Journalists and Freedom Network, have over the better part of this century repeatedly ranked Pakistan as one of the most dangerous countries to practice journalism.
Over 170 have been killed since 2000 and more than 2,000 assaulted, injured, arrested, kidnapped and faced legal cases for their journalism work. Not a single killer has been fully prosecuted and punished. This is a blot on Pakistan’s democratic aspirations. The country’s media, working journalists and rights activists have long demanded a special law to protect them and punish their attackers.
Now this could be at hand. The cabinet of Prime Minister Imran Khan last week approved for tabling in the parliament a legislative bill on the safety of journalists and other media and information practitioners. Will it be enough to deter the high levels of impunity of crimes against journalists in Pakistan? Will the new law, after several rounds of changes, prevent and protect journalists and prosecute perpetrators? The affected party – the country’s community of 20,000 journalists – have high hopes.
The legislative bill is a good step forward and if passed by parliament will make Pakistan the first country in Asia to have such a landmark legislation only the third – after Nepal and the Philippines – to establish a formal legal mechanism to address crimes against journalists and issues of impunity. There are both positives and negatives related to the proposed bill that will impact its utility.
Over the past two years, the incumbent government has been making coercive efforts to expand its censorship net online that citizens and media platforms have been pushing back against through civic activism and legal cases in court.
Adnan Rehmat
First the positives. The bill accepts that not just professional journalists but virtually all kinds of information practitioners exercising freedom of expression and access to information are vulnerable and need protection. It also guarantees that media practitioners cannot be coerced into revealing their sources, thereby protecting whistle blowers who often feed good journalism.
Another good point is that the bill mandates the state to be proactive in monitoring threats and attacks against media practitioners and provide them safety. It also mandates a permanent commission with key representatives of the journalists’ community, rights activists and relevant state authorities to oversee prevention of threats and attacks and required protections.
The negatives are that the media sector stakeholders, especially working journalists, have not been shown the draft approved by the cabinet which dilutes the greater ownership of the affectees that the intended legislation seeks to serve.
The bill also misses out on allowing for the involvement of the statutory National Commission on Human Rights in enforcing rights of journalists to a hazard-free environment. Its inclusion could have been the difference between the promise of the bill and its actual delivery.
The litmus test of the safety legislation would be how it can help deter and prosecute state actors that comprise more than half of all the threats documented against journalists over the preceding two-year period. This includes government departments and officials being behind three of every four legal cases registered against media practitioners for a variety of unproven allegations.
Another key area that the proposed bill’s protection and safety guarantees doesn’t adequately address is Pakistan’s cyberspace, where an emerging ecosystem of non-legacy media independent public interest journalism platforms have emerged, and ruffle the feathers of state actors. Over the past two years, the incumbent government has been making coercive efforts to expand its censorship net online that citizens and media platforms have been pushing back against through civic activism and legal cases in court.
Despite this, the mere presence of a law that promises protections to journalists and citizen information practitioners will provide a legal mechanism and avenue for media practitioners to defend their rights of free speech and access to information. This should, at least theoretically, be able to improve on Pakistan’s democratic credentials. This is welcome because if journalists are unsafe, the media cannot be free and without free media, Pakistan can’t pretend to be a democracy.
- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.
Twitter: @adnanrehmat1
