PTI Govt Encounters Backlash From Opposition Parties & Journalists

ISLAMABAD: A new attempt by the governing Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to control social media and amend election rules via presidential decrees was widely criticised on Sunday by opposition parties and other media and journalist organisations, who called it another “blatant” drive to restrict people’ basic rights and muzzle dissident voices.

The media and journalist groups declared they would not only take legal action against what they deemed the latest government measure aimed at curtailing media’s independence but also organise a protest campaign against it.

Even the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), an ally of the PTI at the centre, came out with a powerful response to the contentious ordinance and labelled it a type of “concession by the government”. “Such laws will cause issues for the government itself,” said MQM-P leader Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui while talking to media in Karachi hours after the law minister, who is also a MQM-P senator, announced the proclamation of the ordinance.

“MQM is carefully assessing the issue, but we are certain that such laws would not fix the difficulties. It’s a way of accepting loss and then proclaiming it publicly,” said Dr Siddiqui, who had served as the IT minister in the PTI cabinet until the position was reassigned to another MQM-P legislator, Aminul Haq.

Soon the PTI itself will become a victim of these new rules, claimed vice-president of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Maryam Nawaz via her official Twitter profile. “The legislations being done by this administration is allegedly targeted at silencing the voices of media and opposition, but these laws will be utilised against Imran and Company. Don’t claim then, we have not notified you (about it),” she tweeted.

While “condemning” the ordinance, the parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Senate, Sherry Rehman, claimed this measure has nothing to do with policing false news, but more with shutting down genuine criticism of the government. Had this been a serious attempt to reduce false news, the stakeholders and journalist bodies would have been brought on board, she added.

PPP Senator Raza Rabbani said the revisions to the electronic crimes law and the Election Act via ordinances amounted to denying a public discussion and robbing the parliament of its constitutional prerogative of legislation. The government has made systematic attempts to apply censor on internet material, he said, adding that the new law imposed fetters on the basic rights of the public.

In a joint statement issued from Karachi, the joint action committee of the media comprising All-Pakistan Newspapers Society, the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), Pakistan Broadcasters Association and Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors rejected the “Draconian amendments” to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) and termed it “a blatant move to stifle media independence, freedom of speech and dissenting voices”.

They warned any effort to curtail freedom of speech will be contested in court. The committee would use all of its component entities to resist such initiatives.

A supplementary statement from PFUJ President Shahzada Zulfiqar and Secretary General Nasser Zaidi voiced significant worry about the ordinance and warned that laws were being altered to make them more “coercive aimed at diminishing these rights.” It was argued that because the constitution already contains provisions for safeguarding the independence and integrity of the judiciary and the armed forces, there was no need to enact new coercive measures. They also argued that courts could use existing laws to punish those who defamed anyone or anything.

The leaders of the PFUJ threatened to organise a nationwide demonstration against its enactment.

PML-N Irfan Siddiqui, a senator from Pakistan’s Punjab province, criticised the bill to change the Elections Act 2017 to enable members of parliament, including ministers, to manage election campaigns as a “manifestation of an authoritarian mentality.”