Darwaish
I was watching the dramatic developments regarding Chief Justice of Pakistan’s case on GEO news today and wondering how much more we have to see after seeing police misbehaving with Chief Justice and his family.
Little did I know what was in store for me. During Kamran Khan’s show, Ansaar Abassi – investigative editor of The News, Islamabad – brought viewers attention to a shocking incident which happened during a live Voice of America ( VOA ) radio show interview (Round Table) yesterday (Listen by clicking audio symbol below)
[Audio:http://pakistaniat.com/audio/WasiZafar.mp3]
Not surprisingly, it involves our Law Minister, Mr. Wasi Zafar. We have often read various reports about public displays of misbehaviors by Federal Minister for Law Wasi Zafar. But this is quite unbelievable.
Listen to the abusive language after the 34th minutes in particular. But also listen to the tone of the discussion of the entire interview in general. This, then, is our Federal Law Minister in action. Its worth hearing.
The Federal Minister said all this in response to a story by the investigative editor The News in which he wrote about the Law Minister’s “long arm of law.” Apparently he doesn’t know the difference between long arm and giving “a big hand.”
Listen to the clip and judge for yourself. I am just speechless!
ADDED 14 March: Here is the video clip of the report on this incident on GEO.
(Report on this in The News).
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=4730 4
Editorial, The News, March 18, 2007
Dealing with dissent
One would have thought that going by the tumultuous events of Friday and the general response of the nation to them, on Saturday the police would have been ordered to be a little more circumspect in their dealing with those protesting the ‘suspension’ of the chief justice. On Saturday, the ‘action’, so to speak, seems to have shifted to Lahore, with dozens of lawyers arrested, manhandled and lathi-charged by the trigger-happy Punjab police. And while the chief justice’s lawyers are now claiming that the tight security cordon around him has been relaxed, it should be remembered that this has happened (pending independent corroboration) only after the Supreme Judicial Council made it clear on Friday that there were no restrictions on the movement of Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. As for Saturday’s actions by the police, they were mostly unprovoked again, this time beginning when lawyers were prevented by the police from going inside the premises of the LHC to attend an all-Pakistan convention organised by the Lahore High Court Bar Association. The police lathi-charged the lawyers and fired tear gas shells and this rash action eventually snow-balled into a full-fledged street battle between the unarmed lawyers and the Punjab police constabulary.
The question that one would like to ask is why cannot the government let the lawyers meet if they want, why cannot it be okay with people protesting whatever it is they wish to protest against, provided it is peaceful and does not disturb public order. Surely by now, it should have realised that an all-out confrontation with either the lawyers’ community or the media is going to be a futile if not downright negative exercise in that it will only serve to further exacerbate an already tense situation and that this heightening of tension will only damage the government’s own credibility and lower its image in the eyes of Pakistanis in general as well as the outside world. As for the attack on the office of The News and Geo TV on Friday, the government has reportedly suspended 14 policemen who allegedly took part in the raid. A judicial inquiry has been promised as well one can only hope that it succeeds in unearthing the real perpetrators of this naked assault on press and media freedom. Again, it is worth reiterating that it defies common sense and logic to believe that junior-level policemen on their own would attack and ransack the offices of a national newspaper and a news channel in the heart of Islamabad, a stone’s throw from the Parliament House, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and the Presidency.
The best way forward for the government would be to allow peaceful forms of protest. As it has already said, the matter is now before the SJC and the directives of this body should be followed. One of them relates to the coverage of the SJC’s proceedings and of the hearing of the reference. Here, as directed by the SJC print and electronic media have reported only the press release detailing Friday’s proceedings. The government, and especially the electronic media regulator PEMRA, should not seek to unnecessarily extend this directive, as has been done so far, to order newspapers and TV channels not to cover the events and incidents arising out of Justice Iftikhar’s suspension and to desist from giving him any coverage.
Such a blanket prohibition impedes the people’s right to be informed on all matters related to the chief justice’s ‘suspension’ except of course those that are sub-judice, i.e. the contents of the reference against Justice Iftikhar and the proceedings of the SJC to examine it. Also, by prohibiting any coverage of the issue, a situation may well arise in which, because of absence of any information, rumours begin to gain currency and that only serves to destabilise things further. As a first step, the government should call off the police on the lawyers and permit them to exercise their democratic right to register a peaceful protest and this should be applicable for civil society in general. As has already been pointed out by some commentators, those at the helm of affairs should realise that the rise of the information age, characterised particularly by the coming of age of the country’s electronic media (and to some extent of the Internet, especially blogs and so on), has changed everything. Clamping down on the flow of information and on dissent is next to impossible and only counter-productive. Ban a TV channel and one will find the information on the Internet or on a blog, blackout a newspaper and get the story on a web forum. The dictum that the Internet is perhaps the biggest encourager of a democratic mindset (and certainly a facilitator of a level-playing field in terms of who controls and provides information) has never been as true as now in Pakistan’s case. Now only if the country’s polity was as democratic, with its head of state and head of government, both accountable solely to the people.
What a disgrace that we have stooped so low to accept such nincompoop jokers and idiots as our honourable Law Ministers. This is the very difference between an elected government and a government imposed by the military. An elected government ministers are accountable to the public and media where as in dictatorships, such third grade ministers can get away with any thing. What a display of enlightened moderation which Musharraf never gets tired of projecting. Atleast now he should be ashmed if not after remaining in power by force un-ethically and un-constitutionally.
i think we first have to solve the issue of changing our law minister who talk in such an unethical manner rather than cjp one!
lol..wake up ppl! the media is takin advantage of their *freedom*! n lukin at that kamran guy i jus wish the geo ppl were a bit more educated!
Wasi Zafar may well become the token fall guy here to be scapegoat. But frankly, I will be glad for at least that. He should have been kicked out so long ago. Its about time, even if this is a token gesture.