Arrests, Blanket Bans, and Missing Journalists — The Pakistan State and Protests
On the 9th May 2023, a series of riots broke out across Pakistan following the arrest of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges of corruption.
On the 10th April 2022, Khan, who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan and founder and chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was the first Pakistani Prime Minister to be ousted following a no-confidence motion vote in parliament. He has since faced numerous lawsuits and cases, which Khan has asserted are politically motivated in order to remove him from electoral politics.
His arrest on the 9th May by government paramilitary forces were similarly triggered by allegations from government officials that he and his wife had received land worth millions of dollars as a bribe from a real estate tycoon through a charitable trust. The subsequent ‘May 9’ riots saw PTI organised protests descend into a series of violent incidents including arson, vandalism and assault on government and military facilities, resulting in the deaths of 5 PTI workers killed by police firing live ammunition.
In order to contain the violence, the government called in the army and announced that the protesters would be tried under army law, launching a massive crackdown against PTI leaders, workers, and supporters who were involved, despite human rights groups including Amnesty International advising that this is against international law. Mobile broadband and social media websites were also swiftly blocked by the government, with mobile broadband services only being restored after a three-day closure. Khan was granted bail on Friday the 12th May after supreme court judges ruled that his arrest was “illegal and invalid.”
Despite the intense state of unrest in Pakistan since the events of the 9th May, Imran Khan’s name and image have been notably missing from national media coverage. Strikingly, channels with a reputation for being enthusiastically pro-Khan have made little mention of the former Prime Minister, even though his battle with the military has been capturing global headlines over the past two months. Whilst it did not refer explicitly to Khan, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) on the 31st May urged television licensees to make certain that "hate mongers, rioters, their facilitators and perpetrators" are "completely screened out from media.” Pakistani journalists have made clear that this directive refers to Khan, who had made daily headlines with his inflammatory speeches and cutting tweets directed towards the government and army since his ousting in 2022. “There is a de facto ban on referring to him in the media, meaning we are no longer allowed to mention his name or show his picture. Pakistani TV channels are not allowed to interview him or air his statements. This is the result of a series of directives issued by the media regulator”, reported one of Pakistan’s most prominent journalists Hamid Mir, writing for The Guardian on Wednesday the 21st of June 2023.
Further stoking fear amongst Pakistani journalists, Imran Riaz Khan, a pro-PTI journalist who has a reputation for spreading PTI propaganda and disinformation, has been missing since the 11th of May. Apprehended at Sialkot International Airport by airport police, Imran Riaz Khan has since been untraceable. According to his family, the journalist was attempting to flee to Oman after his Lahore home was raided the previous day.
On the 24th May, Sami Abraham, another pro-Khan TV journalist disappeared after being abducted whilst returning home to this Islamabad house. Abraham, however, reappeared on the 30th May, claiming that he had been released by his captors and alleging that Pakistan’s security forces had been responsible for his abduction.
According to Freedom Network, not-for-profit organisation monitoring press freedom, there were a total of 24 “threat cases” against journalists monitored and documented in Pakistan in May 2023.
In the face of the autocratic directions set out by PEMRA Imran Khan has still fought to continue broadcasting his speeches, relying on social media forms like YouTube and Instagram and international newscasters like Piers Morgan and Mehdi Hassan to interview him or feature him on their programmes. Denying any responsibility for, or involvement with, the 9th May violence, Khan has alleged that the incidents of violence were used as a "pretext" for a "blanket ban" on him and his party.
On the 11th July, Khan was issued with a non-bailable arrest warrant in a contempt case. Amidst this news, and as the PTI is hit by mass resignations by senior leaders, the opposition leader’s time in electoral politics seems to be drawing to an abrupt end.
The censorship essentially erasing Khan from broadcast media and the parallel destruction of his political career stands as a bad omen for Pakistan’s battered democracy, perhaps pushing the country further away from democratic development and closer towards a state of autocracy. This apparent banning of an opposition leader from broadcast media is a worrying demonstration of how Pakistan’s State authorities tackle critical discourse, using the media regulatory institution to thwart press freedom which fundamentally violates the right to freedom of expression. Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s assessment of Pakistani media currently ranks Pakistan as 150 out of 180 countries in its 2023 World Press Freedom Index, stating “Pakistan’s media regulators are directly controlled by the government and systematically put the defence of the executive government before the public’s right to information.”
In the words of Mir, “Imran Khan may be arrested again soon. The regime wants to remove him from electoral politics but cannot rid his name from Pakistan’s discourse, as if he never existed. I think they are not fighting against Khan, they are actually fighting against the very idea of a democratic Pakistan.”
As Pakistan moves forward with its already embattled reputation and growing domestic polarisation, trying to navigate an ongoing economic crisis and vulnerability to climate disasters, this democratic backsliding poses a further, and extremely sinister, threat to the nation and its people.
Photo Credits: Heinrich Böll Stiftung — Edited by GorStra Team