Time to Walk the Talk: New Age Islam's Selection, 04 April 2017
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
04 April 2017
• Time to Walk the Talk
By Imtiaz Gul
• Bhutto, Pakistan and Peace
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
• Why Bhutto Matters
By Sherry Rehman
• Permanent ‘Exceptions’
By Reema Omer
• Wading Forward Into The Past
By Jawed Naqvi
• Walk the Talk
By Imtiaz Gul
• Freedom of Expression and Limits
By Malik M Ashraf
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Time to Walk the Talk
By Imtiaz Gul
April 4, 2017
This past Holi (March 14), the Hindu festival of colours and spring, something unusual happened; for the first time in Pakistan’s history, its people heard a prime ministerial Holi Day message that was entirely anchored in fundamental human rights, as enshrined in the Constitution.
For all of us, particularly those who have been critiquing the ruling elites for lacking a Rule of Law state narrative, Premier Sharif’s speech to Pakistani Hindus on the occasion of Holi marked a clear break from the undesirable past and present politics of expedience, when he underscored that “no one can force others to adopt a certain religion”. His best quote was clearly centred on the Article 25 (equal citizenry rights): “God will not ask a ruler what he did for followers of a certain religion. He will ask people such as me: what did we do for God’s creation?” He went on to say, “No matter what religion or beliefs you follow, or what part of the country you belong to, you must be provided equal access to progress and development”. The prime minister also took a dig at those involved in forcing Hindu and Christian girls to convert to Islam.
The unusually bold message caused considerable unease among the clerics, with one Allama Ashraf Jalali of the Pakistan Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat group and secretary of the Sunni Ittehad Council, going to the extent of issuing a fatwa against him. “The prime minister said such words that the Earth should have exploded,” he claimed, adding that Sharif “violated his oath, the ideology of Pakistan, as well as the Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (pbuh). His speech is a dangerous attack on Islam.” “We demand a public apology from the prime minister (for his anti-Islam speech),” the cleric said in the video, according to various media reports.
Not many heeded the cleric’s radical interpretation of the constitutionalism that Sharif had expressed as the chief executive of a democratic dispensation. Nor should anyone else who believes in the sanctity of the Constitution as a document representing the will of the people, a document that is open to debate and revision to adapt to changing times, as the prime minister suggested.
Regardless of what motivated the prime minister into taking on the obscurantist views of the religious right, he has certainly set the ball rolling for the assertion of a national narrative rooted in the Constitution of Pakistan.
This, one would hope, would also relieve lots of officials of the pain that they endured in “finding a counter or alternative narrative.” Most have been struggling to come up with recipes, albeit without realising that how can you invent an alternative narrative to counter extremists when no narrative existed at all.
Now to make the narrative speak, the government shall have to look around in Islamabad and deal with illegal structures in the capital itself. There are more seminaries than public schools here. Instead of penalising them, the CDA tends to accommodate the administrators of these structures.
The narrative will become credible when the government uses the Supreme Judicial Council to chuck out judges who are using religion for social and political glory. The prime minister needs to tell all citizens that the nation’s salvation and progress lies in opening doors and avenues and not shutting down the internet or social media. He also needs to convey to the nation that if some misguided social media activists are indulging in the abuse of others, the answer lies in informed responses and not a crackdown on social media. Imposing a ban or announcing a clampdown is hardly an intelligent response.
Another test for the rule-of-law-based national narrative is to punish people caught red-handed rather than allowing VIPs to take cover of their privileges. Justice needs to be seen to be done. Mere talk won’t lend it any credibility. It depends on how rulers walk the talk.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1373463/time-walk-talk/
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Bhutto, Pakistan and Peace
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
04-Apr-17
Relations between Pakistan and India have remained on a see-saw mould since their inception as independent states. There have been three wars and in between many war-like situations. Although there is no standoff, the existing tense relations do not provide any comfort for a better tomorrow. What has added to this grim scenario is the latest report in The New York Times. In its new assessments it is suggested that India is considering allowing for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Pakistan’s arsenal in the event of a war. One expects Pakistani diplomats to draw the attention of the global community of an inevitability of a nuclear war between the two countries now fully loaded with atomic weapons.
Indeed, disclosure by New York Times provides us an opportunity to pay tribute to the great leader — Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto — who gave Pakistan nuclear teeth and his daughter Benazir Bhutto — who enabled it to have long range nuclear-head carrying missile technology that we so now proudly display on our national day celebrations without mentioning to both of Pakistan’s great leaders and their contribution to make Pakistan invincible. Martyred Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (April 4, 1979) — gave us our nuclear edge at the cost of his life. His Army Chief General Ziaul Haq killed him to remain power and to please his American masters who had warned Bhutto of making a horrible example if he pursued his nuclear agenda.
Bhutto had a very broad perspective of Pakistan’s history. He had realized that the permanent tug-of-war like situation between India and Pakistan has had extremely devastating impact on Pakistan. He changed the whole structure of politics in Pakistan — taking it out from the cool comforts of drawing rooms — to the scorching heat in the streets, lanes and by-lanes — he gave the poor and the shackled a voice and made them source of all power. The struggle started by him continues. It is yet to be decided as to who is the sole arbiter of power. It was only for a brief period — five years under ZAB — that masses had the taste of power. Ever since his execution in 1979 they are paying the price for having tasted it.
Long periods of successive dictators, their oppressive rules, and revival of the vested interest and resurgence of retrogressive religious forces have brought us to such a pass that we now pray for another Bhutto. Only Bhutto could have got the subcontinent 43 years of peace.
Indeed we would not have travelled this far had the path not been strewn with the blood of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, his daughter Benazir Bhutto and thousands of their followers. Theirs’ was a lifelong struggle for the empowerment of the people — especially the women and the minorities. After the most ignominious surrender in 1971, ZAB picked up the pieces and gave the nation renewed hope and confidence in its destiny.
ZAB’s advent in politics was a turning point in Pakistan’s history. He was the youngest minister with ideas in an autocratic Ayub government with generals and senior bureaucrats in cahoots to put their claim to political power. Bhutto was driven by his romance with democracy and freedom for the people as envisaged by the Quaid. He accepted to be part of an unelected regime to see how he could move forward to get the country back to MAJ’s vision. Bhutto, as such, chartered himself on a challenging course that would give a new sense of direction to the people and a fresh meaning to politics.
He opened Pakistan for diverse explorers tapping for our hidden energy resources discovering oil and gas deposits and he set Pakistan onto the path to match India’s advancements in the nuclear technology. ZAB had no match in statesmanship and his skills in international politics. He untied Pakistan from the American apron strings. He rejuvenated Pakistan’s independence by consolidating relations with China, European nations and the Third World. And the Islamic Summit that he held in Lahore remains to this day unsurpassed in its glory.
Gen Zia lust for power pushed Pakistan back into dark ages. He ruefully lamented before his execution: “In the process they have robbed the nation of the high ideals and spirit of fraternity the people shared and demonstrated in 1947.”
One would not expect those who had opposed to support ZAB’s mission to carry forward torch of MAJ’s secular Pakistan. With Shaheed Benazir Bhutto gone, it is now incumbent upon the PPP leadership — and its diehard workers to get organised, work on a left of the centre manifesto, carry forward the torch of democratic freedom fueled by the Bhutto blood. There should not be any compromise on the supremacy of the Parliament, empowerment of the people and equality for all its citizens, irrespective of caste, creed, colour or gender, rule of law, independence of judiciary, freedom for media and a firm reiteration that religion shall have nothing to do with the business of the state.
Source: /dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/04-Apr-17/bhutto-pakistan-and-peace
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Why Bhutto Matters
By Sherry Rehman
April 4, 2017
Last month Pakistan played host to an important ECO summit. In the largest gathering of Asian countries the joint resolution did not mention Kashmir. As the oldest dispute on the UN docket, and as a flashpoint between two nuclear countries, there should have been no argument on the contention that Kashmir merited attention.
This is not how it always was for Pakistan. Flashbacks to the OIC summit that Lahore hosted in 1974 under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s (ZAB) leadership come to mind. At a moment when the Muslim world stands under siege, the absence of a statesman is felt. What would Pakistan be doing at this stage, and how would Islamabad be telegraphing its key role in re-shaping the global narrative had Pakistan’s first popularly elected Prime Minister not been executed? As the country lurches from crisis to crisis again, it seems an unavoidable question.
It is also that time of year. April 4 reminds us of the statesman that the country lost to the ambitions of a cardboard-cut-out of an archetypical dictator. In forcing through ZAB’s judicial execution, Ziaul Haq snatched both our history and our future, ripped it from its evolution, and brought Pakistan headlong into a proxy jihad whose murderous spawn we cannot rid ourselves of today.
In many ways Pakistan’s innocent new generations continue to pay the price. Like Lady Macbeth’s hands, the blood just does not wash away. The existential trauma Pakistan faces today may not have stemmed from that day, but most of this murderous militant path was locked on course then. Look at the ruin about us. The smoke and blood from Sehwan in Sindh, the lawyers’ massacre in Quetta still simmers, while the APS carnage in Peshawar, and 2016 Easter in Lahore have become permanent scars. Religion has become a tool of the forces unleashed in our geopolitical search for security, and actually blurred our real security needs, both social and strategic.
Muslims are facing a dangerous world, where we are often judged by our identity and religious denomination, anguished by the bloodthirsty appropriation of a peaceful faith. Islamophobia and its exclusions are much bigger than Pakistan, but so often the dots to global episodes are landed at Pakistan’s door. In daily global discourse, the millenarian dangers of Daesh, the balkanised Middle East and its African dystopias are rarely connected to policy dominoes triggered long ago by great gaming power coalitions in Afghanistan. Pakistan became a country transformed by that encounter with proxy jihad against the Soviet Union. The arguable winning of that war cost us our peace. Yet, at the same time, no one can dispute the fact that Pakistan too became a player in those coalitions, without its parliament, without its consent, and lives today to reap that harvest.
These lost pages of our history point to roads not taken. True, it was a pre-9/11 world, where states still held the monopoly on the use of force, and non-state actors hijacking national agendas was not the norm. Pakistan was no unspoilt paradise, in fact, quite the contrary. East Pakistan had been lost not in one war of secession, but a series of exclusions and apartheids, both economic and political, that started with the language riots of 1952. Politics was a palace-led parlour game, where the voice of the hungry, the dispossessed and the landless was rarely heard.
The country’s morale was at an all-time low, with prisoners of war in India, and a perilous sense of national drift. In this age of anxiety for Pakistan, like a classic tragic hero, with Promethean will and flaw, ZAB became the voice of a leaderless nation, pulling off foreign and social policy coups no one else could. Many of us still remember the Foreign Minister who tore up what was supposed to be the famous Polish Resolution on Kashmir at the United Nations, saying “my country harkens for me”. As the Prime Minister of a truncated country, he not only re-built the shattered economy, but brought back 90,000 soldiers from New Delhi’s prisons as his first task. His diplomacy gave the vexed India-Pakistan relationship the steadying hand of a statesman, with the Simla Treaty and the Middle Eastern spigot of the labour-remittance boom from the newly taking-off Gulf economies.
While his government is remembered for building big infrastructure and cutting a wide swathe through bad governance, his commitment to the federation is often forgotten, sometimes deliberately so. An entire generation is fed the malicious canard that it was his ambition to assume power in West Pakistan that led to the ultimate secession of what is today Bangladesh.
To the contrary, in fact, a little research will remind that after the 1970 election, ZAB had made it clear that he would prefer a democratic solution to the crisis of power-sharing between the two wings of Pakistan. Here is how it went: East Pakistan, with its higher population, had by then united behind Mujib ur Rahman. On 31st October 1971, to be precise, in an interview to the Mumbai newspaper, the Blitz, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (SZAB) made it quite clear that he was willing to lead his party into the opposition. He said, and I quote, “If Mujib ur Rahman had a federal constitution, we would be happy to sit in the opposition and work in a democratic arrangement. But he wanted a confederal arrangement, and in a confederation, both sides had to have representation in the government”.
Yet this point is brushed aside as is the fact that in complete contradiction to the charge sheet made to hang a man, SZAB had never sought the boycott of the National Assembly, but a small delay in its session so that space for an accommodation could be worked out before a conflagration took place in an atmosphere already muddied by high emotions and mis-representations. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission stands up to the light of day to expose hard truths, on which a panel of judges clearly examined evidence and testified to SZAB’s sincerity in attempting to avert a crisis, but that too is tossed aside in the face of a mountain of mythology spun out during the Zia years to protect a shaky regime from the power of Bhutto’s legacy.
In all the vilification that followed his judicial execution, many born after that era forget that Bhutto became the one leader who plotted a middle path for a fragmented and sect-riven Muslim world. Pakistan not only befriended Iran but also loomed large on the Middle Eastern monarchies. As the initiator of hard nuclear power he gave Pakistan strategic leverage. Many today contest its uses, but it remains the main card in Pakistan’s deterrence posture. More importantly, Bhutto should be remembered for his leadership of Pakistan, flaws and all, into a modern future where the nation could stand on its economic feet as sovereign and self-resourced.
He worked himself and his cabinet to deliver on his manifesto promises. For all those who ask what Mr Bhutto’s government accomplished, all they need to do is to talk to the 45% of the poor of Pakistan, who now live under two dollars a day, in a dangerously high statistic, where economic suicides and the selling of one’s own children has become a gruesome new statistic. These people remember a government that brought them food on their tables, that raised their wages, provided housing and jobs and schooling. Most importantly, they remember a leader and a party that addressed them directly. Today, like every terrorist targets the progressive parties, for decades every military dictator feared the legacy of SZAB. The country’s courts stand testament to state money spent on creating political alliances to keep his iconic daughter from leading a powerful government. Benazir Bhutto’s own story is a chronicle of so much struggle, yet she too embodied resistance to the enemy of her era, which morphed into terrorism and extremism. She too died as bravely as her father. If SZAB gave Pakistan the 1973 Constitution that kept the country united, the last PPP government gave it the long-delayed implementation of the diffusion of power.
This is the legacy which the young scion of the Bhutto clan must now defend, in a world riven by conflict, chaos and confusion. Because Bhutto’s party is still the only one which has paid a heavy price on the battlefield of ideas and politics. Years after ZAB’s death, his slogan of Roti, Kapra aur Makan, still resonates with the people who need it again today. The PPP is the only mainstream party that stands up with no equivocation for the rights of the most vulnerable, and it is the only party that addresses squarely the terrorism challenge of the day. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would have it no other way.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1373471/why-bhutto-matters/
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Permanent ‘Exceptions’
By Reema Omer
04 April 2017
LAST month, the parliament voted to pass the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution and the Army (Amendment) Act, 2017, renewing for another two years the authority of military courts to try civilians accused of certain terrorism-related offences. The initial resistance from opposition parties was short-lived and the amendments were eventually passed with overwhelming majorities in both houses.
The renewal of Pakistan’s system of ‘military justice’ is in some ways even more alarming than when it was initially introduced in 2015. This time around, parliamentarians had ample evidence available to them that clearly demonstrated how military courts in actual practice flouted even basic fair trial guarantees. Yet, not only did this fail to convince them to reject the bills, they also let the legislation pass without any effective safeguards.
The bills passed by the parliament include three amendments introduced by the PPP, which were touted as measures to help ensure that military trials would meet due process requirements. The Army Act (as amended) now provides that the Qanoon-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 (the Evidence Act) will be applicable to military trials; that the accused will have the right to counsel of their choice; and the suspects detained under the new law will be informed of the charges against them within 24 hours of arrest.
That these provisions are purported ‘safeguards’ shows how uninformed most members of parliament are about how military trials of civilians actually work in practice.
The renewal of ‘military justice’ is in some ways even more alarming than when it was introduced in 2015.
For example, the laws under which civilians are tried by military courts (ie the Army Act, 1952 and the Army Act Rules, 1954) already recognised the fundamental rights of defence, including the right to engage counsel of choice. They also provided that rules of evidence in military courts’ proceedings “shall be the same as those which are followed in criminal courts.”
However, these safeguards are routinely violated in practice during military courts’ proceedings. These violations are made possible by the opacity and secrecy with which military courts operate and the complete lack of oversight or possibility of appeal to civilian courts.
For example, in every case where families of convicts filed review petitions before high courts and the Supreme Court, the military claimed the convicted persons had “willingly” chosen to forego the right to engage a civilian lawyer or to present a defence. Also, in 95 per cent of cases, the convicts reportedly “confessed” to their crimes. In ordinary murder cases tried by regular courts, convictions on the basis of judicial confessions are even less than 5pc.
What makes suspects behave so differently before military courts that they choose not to present any defence and instead ‘confess’ to the charges, even though they may face the death penalty as a consequence? Even supporters of military courts would agree that in the absence of adequate safeguards, this raises serious concerns about the use of torture and other ill treatment.
The provision that makes it mandatory for suspects arrested pursuant to the Army Act to be informed of the charges against them within 24 hours of arrest, while necessary, will not be relevant to many cases of civilians that typically come before the military courts.
A large number of people convicted by military courts are not terrorism suspects who were arrested by the police and then handed over to the military for trial. They are people who were subjected to enforced disappearance and kept in secret detention in internment centres in Fata and other undisclosed locations for many years — at times for even up to eight years — before their trials. They continue to be left without any redress as even the high courts and Supreme Court have refused to entertain allegations of enforced disappearance or secret detention in their review jurisdiction. Military courts have effectively been used to ‘legitimise’ past cases of enforced disappearance — something this safeguard does not acknowledge, let alone address.
The amendments also make no provision for remedy or redress in cases where military authorities do not respect these safeguards. On the contrary, they give all persons associated with military courts complete immunity from legal proceedings for all actions taken pursuant to the law.
The extension of the ‘temporary’ and ‘exceptional’ use of military courts to try civilian terrorism suspects for another two years also raises more fundamental questions.
First, how long is ‘temporary’? We have seen in other countries how some counterterrorism laws, initially introduced as ‘short-term’ and ‘temporary’ measures, have remained in force for several decades.
For example, the oppressive Sri Lankan Prevention of Terrorism Act, enacted as a temporary law in 1979, still exists. India’s draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act was also introduced as a ‘temporary’ measure, but has been in force in Manipur for 36 years and in Kashmir for 26 years.
Second, what is an ‘exceptional situation’ and on what yardstick are we to assess whether such a situation has normalised? The preambles and statements of objectives of the amendments appear contradictory: on one hand, they claim convictions by military courts have helped reduce terrorism; on the other, they say Pakistan is still going through a grave, existential crisis because of the threat of terrorism. Does the intangible, immeasurable idea of ‘exceptional circumstances’ give the government a carte blanche to enact ‘emergency’ measures for an indefinite period without any regard for human rights? What is the guarantee that in 2019, when the 23rd amendment lapses, it will not be reintroduced on the ground that the ‘exceptional’ situation still persists? It has been more than 15 years since the September 11 attacks in the United States — the US has still retained many of the ‘exceptional’ measures and new powers it adopted to respond to those attacks.
Members of parliament claim they voted against their conscience to allow the 23rd Amendment to pass because military courts, though undemocratic and contrary to the rule of law, are required in these ‘exceptional’ times. Their admission will not help the many people whose lives and liberty are now in danger because of their vote, nor would it help the criminal justice system, which is now at risk of once again being neglected and being permanently displaced by these so-called temporary, exceptional measures.
Source: dawn.com/news/1324730/permanent-exceptions
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Wading Forward Into The Past
By Jawed Naqvi
04 April 2017
THE chief justice of India, Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, says he would prefer that the Ayodhya dispute be settled outside the court, mutually, between the perpetually unyielding Hindu and Muslim petitioners. The apex court is currently studying the Allahabad High Court’s decision of 2010, which had insinuated that there was in fact a birthplace of Lord Ram as claimed by Hindu militants at the disputed site where the 16th-century Babri Masjid once stood. World-renowned historians and archaeologists have desisted from supporting such claims for want of basic evidence.
A progressive judge was earlier dealing with the dispute for years at the Allahabad High Court. He retired with his unalloyed belief that matters of faith were essentially non-justiciable in a secular court such as the one he presided over. A secular court must ideally protect everyone’s religious beliefs as well as the right to remain aloof from all of them. Religious courts would begin from the premise that they are carrying out God’s command, which has its own set of consequences as one can glean from the poison-spewing clerics having the run of Jinnah’s dream nation.
The Ayodhya dispute, therefore, given India’s secular constitution put together by 85 per cent Hindus in the constituent assembly, boils down to a temporal standoff — the rival claims on the land in question between those who say that the mosque was arbitrarily built on what they believe to be the birthplace of Ram and those that want the courts to prevent their forcible eviction from the land on which the mediaeval mosque stood until Dec 6, 1992.
Justice Khehar has offered to personally mediate the complex case if accepted by the parties. There could be no doubt that the judge has offered his help with good intentions. A range of thoughts cross the mind nevertheless about why the apex court would not prefer to explore a legal route and settle the case one way or another as India’s secular law mandates.
We have chosen to accept the route, willy-nilly, of vigilante squads and Hindutva zealots swarming through Nehru’s India.
A rival fact begs discussion. It is not easy to enforce the law in India, with or without the state’s patronage of rogue parties. Remember that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was carried out as a brazen snub to the Supreme Court’s authority. Its standing orders forbade any changing of the status of the disputed monument in Ayodhya. The world knows who all were complicit in disobeying the binding orders, and who led the mobs to wilfully undermine the highest and most revered institution of the Indian state. Among the leading campaigners for the temple movement was Prime Minister Modi. Would his government now allow his mentor L.K. Advani, named in the case, to be tried or punished?
Justice Khehar has described the dispute as a sensitive issue. What happens when he retires though, as early as August this year? Will there be a mechanism backed by the apex court and the government for him to continue as a mediator whose imprimatur is honoured by all when he finds a solution? And what will we do if the solution, in which he suggests a little bit of give and take, widens into a full-blown assault on law and justice as it did in 1992?
We have after all chosen to accept the route, willy-nilly, of vigilante squads and Hindutva zealots swarming through Nehru’s India. They are not dissimilar to the bigots that Pakistan and Bangladesh are struggling to tame after unwittingly releasing them from the bottle, beginning with the reign of the two Zias. What is happening in India is a third or fourth carbon copy of what we have seen elsewhere. Uttar Pradesh, for example, is a smudged copy of the moral policing in Iran. They too enforce dress codes there and are particularly severe on young men and women whose hands even brush each other in public squares. If the so-called anti-Romeo squads of UP (Shakespeare would be turning in his grave) are bodily lifted from the streets of Islamic Iran, the threat by another BJP chief minister to hang (without recourse to law, naturally) people who kill cows, brings to mind the ‘laughing assassin’ of the early days of the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Khalkhali would roam the streets with a crane from which he hanged countless innocent men and women without ever losing the smile on his bearded face. There is a somewhat similar atmosphere in India in which Justice Khehar has offered to stick out his neck on behalf of reason.
A less discussed highlight of the Mandir-Masjid controversy is that it has created a dialogue (or a standoff) between overtly religious parties, both garnering their constituencies with right-wing agendas that leave out India’s open-minded middle ground to worry for the future helplessly. Muslims claim to seek justice, their demand framed in a legal petition. The Hindutva case is framed in religion, which Hindus insist on passing as historical fact.
In these days of right-wing ferment, be it Muslim, or Hindu, or Jewish, or Christian ferment, any demand for justice does seem laughably anachronistic. The Palestinians have a just cause, as do the Kashmiris, the Latinos, the blacks, the tribespeople of Chhattisgarh, or the liberal students of Indian universities, for example, at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. They have all been wronged and the world has put them together in a slot labeled ‘terrorists’. What they face is death, or eviction or slander.
If Justice Khehar can buck the trend, and prevent Ayodhya from mutating into Mathura and Kashi and a larger national inferno, India’s Muslims, but above all the overwhelming majority of secular Hindus, should give him a chance. The future cannot be worse than it looks.
Source: dawn.com/news/1324729/wading-forward-into-the-past
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Walk the Talk
By Imtiaz Gul
02-Apr-17
Something unprecedented happened in Pakistan this Holi. Cutting across religious barriers, its prime minister delivered a ground-breaking speech to its Hindu minority. He called out the radical brand of Islam; giving a message anchored in fundamental human rights in accordance with the federal constitution.
Many of us usually criticise the ruling elite for lacking a vision that establishes the “Rule of Law”. Against all these reservations, the premier’s address marked a clear break from the undesirable — past and present — politics of expedience. He called himself the “prime minister of all religious communities,” while quoting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who believed, “If a place of worship of a non-Muslim is damaged in an Islamic country, Islamic government... I will fight their case myself on the Day of Judgment.”
In a groundbreaking attempt to call out Islamic supremacy, he centred on the Article 25 (Equal Citizenry rights), “God will not ask a ruler what he did for followers of a certain religion. He will ask people such as me: what did we do for God’s creation?”
His most unambiguous words drew on the Articles 20 to 22, which guarantee every citizen the right to profess, practice and propagate his religion; and every religious denomination and sect the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.
“No matter what religion or beliefs you follow, or what part of the country you belong to, you must be provided equal access to progress and development,” he added. Taking a dig at those involved in forced conversions of Hindu and Christian girls, Sharif said, “Forced conversions are considered a criminal practice according to our religious teachings.”
The unusually bold message caused considerable unease among the clerics. Sunni Ittehad Council Secretary, Allama Ashraf Jalali of the Pakistan Ahle Sunnah waJama’ah group was particularly vocal amongst those in opposition and went to the extent of alleging that Sharif had committed blasphemy. “The prime minister said such anti-Islam and blasphemous words that the Earth should have exploded,” he claimed, further adding that Sharif had “violated his oath, ideology of Pakistan, The Quran and Sunnah of Prophet. His speech is a dangerous attack on Islam.” In a video making rounds on social media, he demanded “a public apology from the prime minister (for his anti-Islam speech).”
Not many took much notice of the cleric’s radical interpretation of the constitutionalism. Thus, Sharif’s inclusive comments were largely welcomed as a much-needed initiative by the chief executive of a democratic dispensation. Anyone who believes in the sanctity of the constitution as a document representing the will of the people should realise that it is a document open to debate and revision to adapt to changing times, as the prime minister rightly suggested.
Regardless of what motivated him to take on the obscurantist views by the religious right, he has certainly set the ball rolling in the right direction. His message would help establish a national narrative, which is rooted in the constitution of Pakistan.
This would hopefully also relieve many officials of the much-dreaded pain that they have long endured in “finding a counter or alternative narrative.” Most of them continue to struggle to come up with recipes to counter extremism without realising the crucial presence of having a narrative in the first place.
As for the narrative, the government shall have to look within Islamabad and deal with the illegal structures thriving in the capital itself. Unfortunately, religious seminaries outnumber schools in the public sector in the region. Instead of penalising them, the CDA should acquiesce the administrators of these structures.
The narrative will become credible only when and if the government uses its Judicial Council to chuck out judges using religion for social and political glorification. The prime minister needs to take into confidence all citizens and inform them of the grave need to open doors for nation’s salvation. Closed avenues and restricted internet cannot lead to any considerable progress. He also needs to establish that even if some misguided social media activists are indulging in abuse of others, they should be reciprocated with informed responses, not crackdowns on the social media. Ban and closure can never serve as the answer to problems that require intelligent and smart responses.
Another test for the rule-of-law-based national narrative is to punish people whenever they are caught red-handed. So-called VIP people should no longer be allowed to take the cover of their privileges. Not only should justice be done, it should also undoubtedly be seen to be done. Mere talking about it would not lend any credibility. It only depends on how rulers walk their talk.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/02-Apr-17/walk-the-talk
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Freedom of Expression and Limits
By Malik M Ashraf
April 4, 2017
THE government of Pakistan placed an advertisement in the national dailies inviting the attention of the general public, Media Houses and Social Media users to the freedom of expression allowed under article 19 of the constitution and the areas where utmost discretion is required to be exercised. The advertisement also mentioned the punishments that can be awarded to the violators of the constitution under the Pakistan Penal Code. The article 19 of the constitution reads “Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression and there shall be freedom of press, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court {commission of} or incitement to an offence”
The constitutional provision for freedom of expression and media is in consonance with the internationally recognized role of the states to regulate all the entities within its territorial limits in such a way that they contribute to the strengthening of the state, its ideological moorings, national interests and the moral values of the society with a view to promote peace and tranquillity in the country. In fact there is no concept of unbridled media freedom in the world and rightly. It is universally recognized that freedom comes with responsibility. The media in any state has to exhibit sense of responsibility while enjoying its freedom.
The Social Responsibility Theory propounded by Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchison, Vice Chancellor of Chicago University who headed Hutchison Commission formed in US in 1942 to make recommendations on the freedom of expression and media’s obligations towards the society— in the backdrop of growing calls by the US public for government intervention to check the indiscretions of the media and attempts by the media to avoid incisive govt regulation— remarked “freedom comes with responsibility:
The report of the Commission submitted in 1947, is regarded as the Magna Carte of the modern concept of freedom of expression and media’s responsibilities towards the society. It unequivocally emphasized the need for media to provide accurate, truthful and comprehensive account of events, act as a forum for exchange of comment and criticism, present and clarify goals and values of the society and make sure that it projects a representative picture of the constituent groups of the society. The report also reiterated the fact that society and public have a right to expect high standards of performance and as such intervention can be justified to secure public good. Ethical and professional codes of conduct for the media drawn up by UNESCO, International Federation of Journalists, Media associations, Press Councils in the countries where self-regulatory arrangement is in place and the code of ethics which forms the part of Press Council Ordinance in Pakistan invariably espouse the principles of Social Responsibility Theory propounded by Hutchison Commission.
Judged on the touchstone of the foregoing, the media landscape in Pakistan presents a very dismal picture. While it zealously tends to maintain and protect its freedom, it is not showing the sense of social responsibility that goes with the freedom of expression. The media, regrettably, like the political polarization in the country, is also divided into anti-government, pro-government, and rightist groups with each entity trying to rub-in its own skewed and partisan views on national issues and even resorting to smear campaigns against their supposed rivals. Consequently truth and social responsibility have become casualties of this rampant media culture. A particular media group, which is essentially hostile to incumbent govt, seems to have thrown all caution to winds in complete disregard to universally accepted professional and ethical standards and is hell-bent to distort its image. It does not let go any opportunity to have swipe at govt and is on record to have invented scandals and shown irrepressible propensity to even resort to falsehood.
The media can defend its freedom and play its defined role only when it acts with responsibility. It goes to the credit of the government that it has not put any curbs on the media notwithstanding an erratic and in some cases, even a negative role by certain sections of it, particularly the electronic channels. Before the government acts to fulfil its constitutional obligations, one would like the media to self-regulate itself in a manner that while playing its role as a watch-dog against the government, it also served the cause of the society and the state. In view of the prevailing media landscape in the country, the advertisement placed by the government in the newspapers is a timely and polite reminder to all the concerned stakeholders to know the limits of their role in the task of nation building. It needs to be heeded ungrudgingly.
Source: /pakobserver.net/freedom-of-expression-and-limits/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/pakistan-press/time-walk-talk-new-age/d/110633