MEDIA-PAKISTAN: Proposed Press Laws Put Journalists on Guard

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Muddassir Rizvi

ISLAMABAD, Mar 4 2002 (IPS) - Pakistan’s government says they are meant to ensure media independence, but local journalists are wary over a new set of press laws that are just waiting for the approval of the federal Cabinet.

Indeed, journalists say, the measures seem to be aimed mainly at regulating the media industry.

The proposed laws include Press Council of Pakistan Ordinance 2002 and Press, Newspaper, News Agencies and Books Registration Ordinance 2002.

Although the Pakistani media are not too keen about most of them, journalists are particularly worried over the formation of the Press Council and the Code of Ethics that it is supposed to enforce.

According to the government, the major purpose of the Council would be to take care of the complaints of readers against anything published in newspapers. It would also act as a moral check on the press through the Code of Ethics it would implement.

This code, officials say, would prohibit publications from glorifying criminal acts, sensationalising information and publishing writing that incite religious, ethnic and racial hatred among public.

Journalist Najim Haider Zaidi, however, echoes the sentiments of many in saying, “How will it be determined that a criminal act is glorified or information is sensationalised? The role of the press is to inform public what is happening on the ground.”

“If there exists, for example, religious disharmony among various groups, the press should be able report it as it is,” Zaidi says. “Rather than restricting the flow of information, the government should take measures that could promote, say, religious harmony.”

In fact, most Pakistani journalists believe that the Press Council itself would only create a legal nexus between the government and the media owners that will be used to further restrict the flow of information to the people.

And since the government is the major advertiser in Pakistan, they argue, media owners are bound to toe the official line.

Observes veteran journalist Nasir Zaidi, who was whipped during the Zia ul-Haq regime for protesting against the then dictatorship: “Press councils or similar bodies to ensure responsible journalism should be formed voluntarily by media owners and journalists without any government intervention.”

“Similarly,” continues Zaidi, “these bodies should be able to devise their own code of ethics that should certainly be reflective of legal, moral and cultural realities on ground. The government should have nothing to do with such bodies.”

But officials say the proposed laws, particularly that regarding the Press Council, were framed in consultation with the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and All Pakistan Newspaper Employees Confederation (APNEC).

The APNS and CPNE mostly comprise editors-cum-owners of newspapers and magazines, while the PFUJ and APNEC represent working journalists and other newspaper employees.

But other groups representing reporters and other media personnel have disassociated themselves from the draft laws. What they had been demanding, they say, was the repeal of all existing laws that restrict the flow of information to the people in violation of the country’s constitution.

“Sections…of the Pakistan Penal Code, the Official Secrets Act, Sedition Act and the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance are major laws that are in conflict with the right to freedom of information and expression,” says the Journalists Resource Centre (JRC) in one of its newsletters.

The JRC, which works for the welfare and training of journalists, goes on to suggest that instead of handling just issues of “bad journalism”, the proposed Press Council should also be able to act on people’s complaints on being denied their right to official information.

“The Press Council in Pakistan should function as a forum to redress any grievance accruing from the application of any law on the members of media industry, so that the chances of abuse of law could be circumvented,” says the JRC.

Then again, most journalists say that the proposed composition of the Press Council already leaves much to be desired, because it gives maximum representation to the APNS and CPNE while leaving working journalists out.

To be chaired by a retired judge of the country’s Supreme Court or any person eligible to be a judge of the apex court, the Council will also have representatives from unnamed human rights groups, as well as nominees of the government and leader of the opposition.

But as a PFUJ member who declines to be named points out, “Equal representation of working journalists having no corporate stake in any newspaper or magazine would have given this council some semblance of an independent body.”

“In its present form,” says the reporter, “it just appears to be an affair between the government and the media owners to pin down any journalist who crosses the undefined limits of freedom of expression.”

Most journalist organisations also argue that any Code of Ethics would be workable only after the government enacts the promised Freedom of Information Ordinance, which they suspect has been put in cold storage.

“We have the right to access information, especially regarding the government activities,” says a senior journalist. “Unless we have the access, we will have to rely on unnamed officials — an act the proposed Code of Ethics prohibits.”

Interestingly enough, even the APNS — which is known for having a different view on the freedom to information law from that of journalists and rights groups — has criticised the government for dragging its feet on this ordinance and excluding it from the set of media-related laws it is planning to enact.

“It is absurd to believe that a responsible free press can exist without accurate and timely information, which leads to the creation of an informed public opinion,” said APNS President Hameed Haroon in a press statement.

“By blocking access to information, the government, thus, whether consciously or not, is rendering ineffective the apparatus of press freedom, which depends of the free flow of information,” he added.

Haroon also said that the proposed ordinance “does not endanger national security or official secrets likely to damage the formation of strategic security policies in Pakistan”.

“It merely seems to cast a harsh and informed spotlight on the day-to-day activities of the government, its decisions and certainly some of its deepest follies,” he said.

The government, however, has been quick to the draw, and now says that the draft of the freedom of information ordinance is already being prepared.

Announced a government spokesperson recently: “A detailed exercise has been conducted and the feedback has been received and analysed. The APNS and the CPNE would certainly be consulted and their views would be given the consideration they deserve. The process would be completed sooner than later.”