Adil Najam
News is that GEO Network is closing down. I hope the news is a false alarm, but I am told that this has been announced on Geo TV itself. An email making the rounds from someone at GEO itself reads:
At this moment we here at Geo are extremely SAD as Geo network is forced to shut down due to Govt pressure on UAE our base country.
Insha Allah we will fight. We are proud that the management of Jang Group never made compromise and prefer to fight till death.
I would rather wait to hear more details and to see reaction to this from the government, from the people of Pakistan and also the rest of the world before I comment in detail. But my first reaction is, yet again, one of disgust. The things that we coudl have been most proud of in recent years and months - an assertive judiciary, a free media - are being snatched away one by one. I hope it turns out not to be so. But if so, then who next?
Original Post (Nov. 4, 2007):
The emergency declared by Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday was not surprising. But that does not make it any less disturbing. Amongst the many unspeakable actions that have resulted from this is a clampdown on the media, especially the electronic news media. In response, GEO News has made the audio stream of its transmissions available on line.
You can listen to GEO News by clicking on image below.
Windows Media Player or VLC is required to play this live audio.
Right Yousuf. I read some alternative view points and analysis on pakaffairs.com blog too. Some interesting read with good context.
before Musharaf’s speech I tried very hard to figure out what line of reasoning he would assume to justify his actions.
By the end of it, I was embarrassed and heart-broken.
The dailytimes editorial posted in comments section really provides some alternative food for thought.
Maybe someone should post this as a separate discussion. No?
Jang groups policy is certainly indefensible. Jang has always been a toady of most governments and its differences with rulers emerged only when they tried to stop giving undue favours to it.
Even among news channels Geo had become quite disappointing lately. I would rank Aaj TV as the best and most independent channel followed by ARY Oneworld.
It is really sad what Musharraf sb has done in the country and I think that by no way one can tend to defend it! The most shameful aspect of this misadventure is humiliation of judiciary and we, as a nation, would not be in a position to come out of this trauma for a long time. Mushrraf’s strike on TV Channels is yet another self-motivated attempt. I agree that these channels were not playing a positive and useful role in our society especially Geo TV which has received huge money from vicious circles and then ran a whole campaign against so called Hadood laws. I am not a fan of such legislation but quite obviously it was not the mandate of a news channel to advance mush’s and bush’s agenda on the name of a slogan which they don’t believe in. Jang group is even Mushrraf’s ally even today but in a different way. See today’s editorial of Jang, which has impact on general masses and then of The News, which is so called policy influence tool!! What a sham and dual strategy of this news paper!!
Editorial, The News, Nov 5, 2007
Age of darkness
Monday, November 05, 2007
With the flickering off screens of private media channels, as a state of emergency, which in effect is a euphemism for martial law, was imposed on Saturday, Pakistan entered a new age of darkness. The two institutions, the judiciary and the media, which in recent months have given people most cause for cheer, have been the most severely targeted in President Musharraf’s late night speech, following the issuing of the PCO. As for the claim that the federal and provincial assemblies will continue to function, this in effect means little as in the absence of an operative constitution, these institutions have no meaningful status.
As had been predicted in the days of speculation that led to the emergency, it is the actions of the judiciary that have come under the severest attack and been used in an attempt to justify the shoving aside what remains of Pakistan’s much tampered with and tattered constitution. Whereas critics other than Musharraf have in the past months expressed some dismay over the volume of cases taken up by the apex court, including hundreds that have attracted suo motu attention, this, more than anything else, shows up the failures of the system of justice delivery at the lower levels. For anyone genuinely interested in putting Pakistan, and its people, first, the measures that needed to be taken was a resolving of the situation where people were denied justice for years due to flaws in the working of district courts. Whereas the wisdom of the Supreme Court in taking on such a vast volume of work raised questions, the issues of ordinary people can only be aggravated by removing the one forum they had used to seek redress from grievance.
And indeed, it must be noted that the other accusations against the court - of interfering in the war on terror, weakening thegovernment’s writ or humiliating and demoralizing government officials - also, more than anything else, expose the weaknesses of the system. From the actions of the court a great deal could have been learned about the working of police, the intelligence services and the bureaucracy. Slip-shod investigative work, that leaves open gaping legal loopholes, is no way to win the war on terror. Adopting a policy of secrecy in this struggle, or indulging in ‘abducting’ suspects, cannot help either. The war on terror must be won not only on the ground - through armed action and the imprisonment of those found guilty - but also in the minds of people. And this can happen only when there is transparency, when courts and people can be informed of crimes committed by alleged terrorists and government functionaries are able to give answers about the wrongs they have committed and how these have, under the law, been dealt with.
The war against militants is now too big to be fought behind closed doors. The full facts about it, and those behind it, need to be made known and not papered over. And, speaking of hiding the truth, while the sudden silencing of private electronic media channels may have brought some immediaterelief to government, in the longer term it will obviously cause more harm than good. For one, as the channels which had made their way into thousands of living rooms over the past five years have vanished, so has the fragile façade of democracy a largely authoritarian regime had tried to build. The free media channels had also provided a vital outlet for dissent, and with this platform now severely curtailed, the rage that bubbles just beneath the surface in a country where there are so many frustrations and so few political options, may well boilover in more dangerous form. And of course, the blacking out of the channels and the tough restrictions that effectively prevent the media from criticizing the head of state, the judiciary or the military mean that, once more, as in the past, people are to be denied their basic right to know. Indeed, by undoing, with one thoughtless stroke, its own policy in permitting free media channels to operate, the government has removed from its credit list something that had counted as a significant achievement, and replaced it with an ominous black mark.
The full consequences of the new situation Pakistan has been plunged into are still to be seen. But they cannot be positive. As such, in the current scenario, one can only hope the present phase is kept as short as possible and full constitutional rule restored before the passage of too many weeks or months of darkness.
DAILY TIMES Editorial: Wages of confrontation
The Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, has declared, according to Sheikh Rashid, the railways minister, a state of “Emergency Plus” because his order carries with it a Provisional Constitutional order (PCO) associated in Pakistan with a post-martial law status quo. In his address to the nation, General Musharraf held the Supreme Court largely responsible for the creation of a situation that necessitated the declaration of emergency. He says the judiciary had trespassed on the functions of the legislature and the executive and thus paralysed all governance.
What happened on Saturday was foreseen by many actors on the Pakistani political stage, especially Daily Times. We sounded many warnings to those who seemed bent upon confrontation, but these were either ignored or criticised. There was a division between those who sought a “revolutionary” change in favour of democracy and those who thought a “transition” would be less painful as well as more realistic, given the challenge of terrorism in the country. Daily Times was of the opinion that confrontation, if taken too far, would actually delay the date with democracy in January 2008 by when General Musharraf would have taken off his uniform and new general elections would have returned the peoples verdict. Indeed, we had argued against forcing a repetition of negative historical patterns in the country.
There were many who agreed with this “transitionist” view, but there was an opinion split across the board in the country which prevented realism from prevailing. The national economy, based on the “realism of opportunity”, silently supported transition, simply because it had done well during the period of political stability since 1999. The up and down movements of the stock exchange clearly signalled that any “revolutionary” fervour behind the desire to correct the “civil-military” relationship overnight in the country would be harmful.
A few politicians grasped the possible reversion to old patterns if confrontation was taken too far. Others saw it too but the attraction of being in the middle of the lawyers’ movement, and sheer opportunism, closed their minds to the possibility of a national setback. Political alliances were fractured on the basis of these two ways of looking at the situation. Mainstream PMLN saw opportunity in gathering under the non-compromising banner unfurled by Jamaat-e Islami and Imran Khan; but the PPP and JUIF were convinced that any “zero-sum” face-off with President General Musharraf would be counter-productive. Interestingly, the instinct to back “transition” rather than “confrontation” was alive among parties with higher stakes in the functioning system after the 2002 elections.
There is no doubt that there was “judicial activism” in the country not normally seen in third world states where institutions often malfunction. Before he got wrongly dismissed in March 2007, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had hundreds, some say thousands, of suo motu cases under his belt. He had already put the brakes on privatisation by reversing the sale of Pakistan Steel Mills. But after his reinstatement, the apex court underwent a radical and extremist transformation that, as it turns out, has harmed rather than helped Pakistan. The lawyers’ movement and its support among the general public made the judges square off against the government.
Unfortunately, many electronic media journalists, flushed by their new found freedom to say whatever they liked, motivated by the principle of subjecting the state to accountability, and offended by the government’s action to remove them from scenes of conflict, added to the tendency to push the executive to the wall. Regrettably, too, the Lal Masjid in Islamabad was returned by the Supreme Court to the terrorists under these conditions. A suo motu judiciary went after the “missing” people cases with a vengeance, regardless of the nature of the terrorist charges against them, threatening the civil servants with punishments, and indirectly causing them to lose initiative in the pursuit of their duties.
The axe has fallen on the judiciary. At the Supreme Court level, 12 judges have bowed out while in the provinces 48 judges have found themselves without a job. While confrontation will intensify in the coming days, the alacrity with which some of the key vacated slots have been filled indicates a national divide that might help the Musharraf administration to control the situation. He has a political coalition which will back him, and he has politicians like Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Ms Benazir Bhutto who opposed the “revolutionary” intent of the confrontationists and may now cooperate if the situation doesn’t get out of hand.
In the “struggle” for democracy, the retreat of the state in the face of Al Qaeda’s terrorism had been either “denied” or subordinated to the higher goals of untrammelled democracy. The unrealistic, and some would say adventurist, confrontationist slogan was: get the general out of the system, dump the “American agenda”, and terrorism will vanish overnight. On the other hand, the warlords who spearhead the Al Qaeda thrust in Pakistan put forward conditions of ceasefire that no one pays heed to: removal of America and NATO from Iraq and Afghanistan and the proclamation of Islam of the Taliban variety in Pakistan.
Until now, the declared intent of President General Musharraf was to complete the “third phase” of holding elections. Now some ministers are saying that the general elections can be postponed in view of the deteriorating law and order situation posed by both the terrorists and the confrontationists. But this should not happen. While he copes with Al Qaeda, he must be held to his pledge to hold free and fair elections as originally promised in January 2008. If they are postponed, the crisis will deepen. Meanwhile, the restrictions on the media must be removed and the repressive measures undertaken to stifle protest must be halted. *
WASIM ARIF / OTHER PAKISTAN, seems like you are self-promoting yourself. Nothing wrong with that, but atleast give some professional look to your site. It looks like crap!!! No one will take it seriously…